(library 

I        uNtVLR5.»TV0F 

I       SAN  DIEGO 


J 


ri^^uuf/^i.  ci^rcLytccAc^ 


fyjor/iyccu 


^wsm^f^. 


•^^&w^mamaaam 


Sltbrarg  of  Mc^t 
(!II|urrl|  Sttiinttg  ^rtyool 


fZc7 


A^, 


olQoJJ        cic 


ExDono   M^*ri'^^..1^..1*::f^nd^ 
Date L..h±-.^:j. 


T^(o<^l/Z. 


(6nglt0l)  JHcn  of  Cettera 

EDITED  BY  JOHN  MORLEY 


X  ^^ 


^  / "? 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/drydenbygeorgesaOOsainiala 


JOHN  DRYDEN 


2)ri^6en 


r 


by 


GEORGE     SAINTSBURY,    M.A. 

AUTHOR  OF 

"  HISTORY  OF  ELIZABETHAN  LITERATURE  "  "  DRYDEN  " 

"  MARLBOROUGH  "  ETC. 


JBriQlisb  {fbcn  of  Xetters 

EDITED  BY 

JOHN   MORLEY 


HARPER   &-   BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

NEW     YORK      AND     LONDON 

1902 


PKEFATORY  NOTE. 


A  WRITER  on  Dryden  is  more  especially  bound  to  acknowl- 
edge his  indebtedness  to  his  predecessors,  because,  so  far 
as  matters  of  fact  are  concerned,  that  indebtedness  must 
necessarily  be  greater  than  in  most  other  cases.  There  is 
now  little  chance  oi  fresh  information  being  obtained  about 
the  poet,  unless  it  be  in  a  few  letters  hitherto  undiscovered 
or  withheld  from  publication.  I  have,  therefore,  to  ac- 
knowledge my  debt  to  Johnson,  Malone,  Scott,  Mitford, 
Bell,  Christie,  the  Rev.  R.  Hooper,  and  the  writer  of  an  ar- 
ticle in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  1878.  Murray's  "Guide 
to  Northamptonshire  "  has  been  of  much  use  to  me  in  the 
visits  I  have  made  to  Dryden's  birthplace,  and  the  numer- 
ous other  places  associated  with  his  memory  in  his  native 
county.  To  Mr.  J.  Churton  Collins  I  owe  thanks  for 
pointing  out  to  me  a  Dryden  house  which,  so  far  as  he 
and  I  know,  has  escaped  the  notice  of  previous  biogra- 
phers. Mr.  W.  Noel  Sainsbury,  of  the  Record  Office,  has 
supplied  me  with  some  valuable  information.  My  friend 
Mr.  Edmund  W.  Gosse  has  not  only  read  the  proof-sheets 
of  this  book  with  the  greatest  care,  suggesting  many  things 
of  value,  but  has  also  kindly  allowed  me  the  use  of  origi- 
nal editions  of  many  late  seventeenth  -  century  works,  in- 
cluding most  of  the  rare  pamphlets  against  the  poet  in 
reply  to  his  satires. 


vi  PREFATORY  NOTE. 

Except  Scott's  excellent  but  costly  and  bulky  edition, 
there  is,  to  the  disgrace  of  English  booksellers  or  book- 
buyers,  no  complete  edition  of  Dryden.  The  first  issue  of 
this  in  1808  was  reproduced  in  1821  with  no  material  al- 
terations, but  both  are  very  expensive,  especially  the  sec- 
ond. A  tolerably  complete  and  not  unsatisfactory  Dryden 
may,  however,  be  got  together  without  much  outlay  by 
any  one  who  waits  till  he  can  pick  up  at  the  bookshops 
copies  of  Malone's  edition  of  the  prose  works,  and  of  Con- 
greve's  original  edition  (duodecimo  or  folio)  of  the  plays. 
By  adding  to  these  Mr.  Christie's  admirable  Globe  edition 
of  the  poems,  very  little,  except  the  translations,  will  be 
left  out,  and  not  too  much  obtained  in  duplicate.  This, 
of  course,  deprives  the  reader  of  Scott's  life  and  notes, 
which  are  very  valuable.  The  life,  however,  has  been  re- 
printed, and  is  easily  accessible. 

In  the  following  pages  a  few  passages  from  a  course  of 
lectures  on  "  Dryden  and  his  Period,"  delivered  by  me  at 
the  Royal  Institution  in  the  spring  of  1880,  have  been 
incorporated. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  PASK 

Befosb  thb  Restobatiom 1 

CHAPTER  II. 
Earlt  Litbbart  Wokk 23 

CHAPTER  III. 
Pbriod  or  Dbamatic  Activity 38 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Satibical  and  Didactic  Poems 71 

CHAPTER  V. 
Life  fbom  1680  to  1688 99 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Later  Dbahas  and  Pbose  Wokks 113 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Period  of  Translation 135 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Fables 163 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Conclusion 177 


D  R  Y  D  E  N. 

CHAPTER  I. 

BEFORE   THE    RESTORATION. 

John  Drtden  was  born  on  the  9th  of  August,  1631,  at 
the  Vicarage  of  Aldwinkle  All  Saints,  between  Thrapston 
and  Oundle.  Like  other  small  Northamptonshire  villages, 
Aldwinkle  is  divided  into  two  parishes,  All  Saints  and  St. 
Peter's,  the  churches  and  parsonage -houses  being  within 
bowshot  of  each  other,  and  some  little  confusion  has  arisen 
from  this.  It  has,  however,  been  cleared  up  by  the  indus- 
trious researches  of  various  persons,  and  there  is  now  no 
doubt  about  the  facts.  The  house  in  which  the  poet  was 
bom  (and  which  still  exists,  though  altered  to  some  extent 
internally)  belonged  at  the  time  to  his  maternal  grandfa- 
ther, the  Rev.  Henry  Pickering.  The  Drydens  and  the 
Pickerings  were  both  families  of  some  distinction  in  the 
county,  and  both  of  decided  Puritan  principles ;  but  they 
were  not,  properly  speaking,  neighbours.  The  Drydens 
originally  came  from  the  neighbourhood  of  the  border,  and 
a  certain  John  Dryden,  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  married  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Sir  John 
Cope,  of  Canons  Ashby,  in  the  county  of  Northampton. 
1* 


2  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

Erasmus,  the  son  of  this  John  Dryden — the  name  is  spelt 
as  usual  at  the  time  in  half-a-dozen  different  ways,  and 
there  is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  the  poet  invented 
the  y,  though  before  him  it  seems  to  have  been  usually 
Driden — was  created  a  baronet,  and  his  third  son,  also  an 
Erasmus,  was  the  poet's  father.  Before  this  Erasmus 
married  Mary  Pickering  the  families  had  already  been 
connected,  but  they  lived  on  opposite  sides  of  the  county, 
Canons  Ashby  being  in  the  hilly  district  which  extends 
to  the  borders  of  Oxfordshire  on  the  south-west,  while 
Tichmarsh,  the  headquarters  of  the  Pickerings,  lies  on  the 
extreme  east  on  high  ground,  overlooking  the  flats  of 
Huntingdon.  The  poet's  father  is  described  as  "  of  Tich- 
marsh," and  seems  to  have  usually  resided  in  that  neighbour- 
hood. His  property,  however,  which  descended  to  our  poet, 
lay  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Canons  Ashby  at  the  village 
of  Blakesley,  which  is  not,  as  the  biographers  persistently 
repeat  after  one  another,  **  near  Tichmarsh,"  but  some  for- 
ty miles  distant  to  the  straightest  flying  crow.  Indeed, 
the  connexion  of  the  poet  with  the  seat  of  his  ancestors, 
and  of  his  own  property,  appears  to  have  been  very  slight. 
There  is  no  positive  evidence  that  he  was  ever  at  Canons 
Ashby  at  all,  and  this  is  a  pity.  For  the  house — still  in 
the  possession  of  his  collateral  descendants  in  the  female 
line  —  is  a  very  delightful  one,  looking  like  a  miniature 
college  quadrangle  set  down  by  the  side  of  a  country  lane, 
with  a  background  of  park  in  which  the  deer  wander,  and 
a  fringe  of  formal  garden,  full  of  the  trimmest  of  yew- 
trees.  All  this  was  there  in  Dryden's  youth,  and,  more- 
over, the  place  was  the  scene  of  some  stirring  events.  Sir 
John  Driden  was  a  staunch  parliamentarian,  and  his  house 
lay  obnoxious  to  the  royalist  garrisons  of  Towcester  on 
the  one  side,  and  Banbury  on  the  other.     On  at  least  one 


1.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  8 

occasion  a  great  fight  took  place,  the  parliamentarian!,  bar- 
ricading themselves  in  the  church  of  Canons  Ashby,  with- 
in stone's  throw  of  the  house,  and  defending  it  and  its 
tower  for  several  hours  before  the  royalists  forced  the 
place  and  carried  them  oflE  prisoners.  This  was  in  Dry 
den's  thirteenth  year,  and  a  boy  of  thirteen  would  have 
rejoiced  not  a  little  in  such  a  state  of  things. 

But,  as  has  been  said,  the  actual  associations  of  the  poet 
lie  elsewhere.  They  are  all  collected  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nene,  and  a  well-girt  man  can  survey  the  whole  in  a  day's 
walk.  It  is  remarkable  that  Dryden's  name  is  connected 
with  fewer  places  than  is  the  case  with  almost  any  other 
English  poet,  except,  perhaps,  Cowper.  If  we  leave  out  of 
sight  a  few  visits  to  his  father-in-law's  seat  at  Charlton,  in 
Wiltshire,  and  elsewhere,  London  and  twenty  miles  of  the 
Nene  valley  exhaust  the  list  of  his  residences.  This  val- 
ley is  not  an  inappropriate  locale  for  the  poet  who  in  his 
faults,  as  well  as  his  merits,  was  perhaps  the  most  English 
of  all  English  writers.  It  is  not  grand,  or  epic,  or  tragical ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  sufficiently  varied,  free  from 
the  monotony  of  the  adjacent  fens,  and  full  of  historical 
and  architectural  memories.  The  river  in  which  Dryden 
acquired,  beyond  doubt,  that  love  of  fishing  which  is  his 
only  trait  in  the  sporting  way  known  to  us,  is  always  pres- 
ent in  long,  slow  reaches,  thick  with  water  plants.  The 
remnants  of  the  great  woods  which  once  made  Northamp- 
tonshire the  rival  of  Nottingham  and  Hampshire  are  close 
at  hand,  and  luckily  the  ironstone  workings  which  have 
recently  added  to  the  wealth,  and  detracted  from  the 
beauty  of  the  central  district  of  the  county,  have  not  yet 
invaded  Dryden's  region.  Tichmarsh  and  Aldwinkle,  the 
places  of  his  birth  and  education,  lie  on  opposite  sides  of 
the  river,  about  two  miles  from  Thrapston.     Aldwinkle  is 


i  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

sheltered  and  low,  and  looks  across  to  the  rising  ground 
on  the  summit  of  which  Tichmarsh  church  rises,  flanked 
hard  by  with  a  huge  cedar -tree  on  the  rectory  lawn,  a 
cedar-tree  certainly  coeval  with  Dryden,  since  it  was  plant- 
ed two  years  before  his  birth.  A  little  beyond  Aldwinkle, 
following  the  course  of  the  river,  is  the  small  church  of 
Pilton,  where  Erasmus  Dryden  and  Mary  Pickering  were 
married  on  October  21, 1630.  All  these  villages  are  em- 
bowered in  trees  of  all  kinds,  elms  and  walnuts  especially, 
and  the  river  banks  slope  in  places  with  a  pleasant  abrupt- 
ness, giving  good  views  of  the  magnificent  woods  of  Lil- 
f ord,  which,  however,  are  new-comers,  comparatively  speak- 
ing. Another  mile  or  two  beyond  Pilton  brings  the  walk- 
er to  Oundle,  which  has  some  traditional  claim  to  the  credit 
of  teaching  Dryden  his  earliest  humanities ;  and  the  same 
distance  beyond  Oundle  is  Cotterstock,  where  a  house,  still 
standing,  but  altered,  was  the  poet's  favourite  sojourn  in 
his  later  years.  Long  stretches  of  meadows  lead  thence 
across  the  river  into  Huntingdonshire,  and  there,  just  short 
of  the  great  north  road,  lies  the  village  of  Chesterton,  the 
residence,  in  the  late  days  of  the  seventeenth  century,  of 
Dryden's  favourite  cousins,  and  frequently  his  own.  All 
these  places  are  intimately  connected  with  his  memory, 
and  the  last  named  is  not  more  than  twenty  miles  from 
the  first.  Between  Cotterstock  and  Chesterton,  where  lay 
the  two  houses  of  his  kinsfolk  which  we  know  him  to 
have  most  frequented,  lies,  as  it  lay  then,  the  grim  and 
shapeless  mound  studded  with  ancient  thorn -trees,  and 
looking  down  upon  the  silent  Nene,  which  is  all  that  re- 
mains of  the  castle  of  Fotheringhay.  Now,  as  then,  the 
great  lantern  of  the  church,  with  its  flying  buttresses  and 
tormented  tracery,  looks  out  over  the  valley.  There  is  no 
allusion   that  I  know   of  to   Fotheringhay  in  Dryden's 


I.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  8 

works,  and,  indeed,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  very  natu- 
ral feeling  among  all  seventeenth  century  writers  on  the 
court  side  that  the  less  said  about  Mary  Stuart  the  better. 
Fotheringhay  waits  until  Mr.  Swinburne  shall  complete  the 
trilogy  begun  in  Chastelard  and  continued  in  Bothwell,  for 
an  English  dramatic  poet  to  tread  worthily  in  the  steps  of 
Montchrestien,  of  Vondel,  and  of  Schiller.  But  Dryden 
must  have  passed  it  constantly ;  when  he  was  at  Cotter- 
stock  he  must  have  had  it  almost  under  his  eyes,  and 
we  know  that  he  was  always  brooding  over  fit  historical 
subjects  in  English  history  for  the  higher  poetry.  Nor 
is  it,  I  think,  an  unpardonable  conceit  to  note  the  domi- 
nance in  the  haunts  of  this  intellectually  greatest  among 
the  partisans  of  the  Stuarts,  of  the  scene  of  the  great- 
est tragedy,  save  one,  that  befell  even  that  house  of  the 
furies. 

There  is  exceedingly  little  information  obtainable  about 
Dryden's  youth.  The  inscription  in  Tichmarsh  Church, 
the  work  of  his  cousin  Mrs.  Creed,  an  excellent  person 
whose  needle  and  pencil  decorated  half  the  churches  and 
half  the  manor-houses  in  that  part  of  the  country,  boasts 
that  he  had  his  early  education  in  that  village,  while  Oun- 
dle,  as  has  been  said,  has  some  traditional  claims  to  a  simi- 
lar distinction.  From  the  date  of  his  birth  to  his  entry 
at  Westminster  School  we  have  no  positive  information 
whatever  about  him,  and  even  the  precise  date  of  the  lat- 
ter is  unknown.  He  was  a  king's  scholar,  and  it  seems 
that  the  redoubtable  Busby  took  pains  with  him — doubt- 
less in  the  well-known  Busbeian  manner — and  liked  his 
verse  translations.  From  Westminster  he  went  to  Cam- 
bridge, where  he  was  entered  at  Trinity  on  May  18th, 
1650,  matriculated  on  July  16th,  and  on  October  2nd  was 
elected  to  a  Westminster  scholarship.     He  was  then  nine- 


%  DRYDEN.  [CHAP. 

teen,  an  instance,  be  it  observed,  among  many,  of  the  com- 
plete mistake  of  supposing  that  very  early  entrance  into 
the  universities  was  the  rule  before  our  own  days.  Of 
Dryden's  Cambridge  sojourn  we  know  little  more  than  of 
his  sojourn  at  Westminster.  He  was  in  trouble  on  July 
19th,  1652,  when  he  was  discommonsed  and  gated  for  a 
fortnight  for  disobedience  and  contumacy.  Shadwell  also 
says  that  while  at  Cambridge  he  "  scurrilously  traduced 
a  nobleman,"  and  was  "rebuked  on  the  head"  therefor. 
But  Shad  well's  unsupported  assertions  about  Dry  den  are 
unworthy  of  the  slightest  credence.  He  took  his  degree 
in  1654,  and  though  he  gained  no  fellowship,  seems  to 
have  resided  for  nearly  seven  years  at  the  university. 
There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  controversy  about  the  feel- 
ings with  which  Dryden  regarded  his  alma  mater.  It  is 
certainly  curious  that,  except  a  formal  acknowledgment  of 
having  received  his  education  from  Trinity,  there  is  to  be 
found  in  his  works  no  kind  of  affectionate  reference  to 
Cambridge,  while  there  is  to  be  found  an  extremely  un- 
kind reference  to  her  in  his  very  best  manner.  In  one  of 
his  numerous  prologues  to  the  University  of  Oxford — the 
University  of  Cambridge  seems  to  have  given  him  no  oc- 
casion of  writing  a  prologue — occur  the  famous  lines, 

"  Oxford  to  him  a  dearer  name  shall  be 
Than  his  own  mother  university ; 
Thebes  did  his  green  unknowing  youth  engage, 
He  chooses  Athens  in  his  riper  age." 

It  has  been  sought  to  diminish  the  force  of  this  very  left- 
handed  compliment  to  Cambridge  by  quoting  a  phrase  of 
Dryden's  concerning  the  "gross  flattery  that  universities 
will  endure."  But  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  most  uni- 
versity men  will  agree  with  me  that  this  is  probably  a 


I.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  7 

unique  instance  of  a  member  of  the  one  university  going 
out  of  his  way  to  flatter  the  other  at  the  expense  of  his 
own.  Dryden  was  one  of  the  most  accomplished  flatter- 
ers  that  ever  lived,  and  certainly  had  no  need  save  of  de- 
liberate choice  to  resort  to  the  vulgar  expedient  of  insult- 
ing one  person  or  body  by  way  of  praising  another.  What 
his  cause  of  dissatisfaction  was  it  is  impossible  to  say,  but 
the  trivial  occurrence  already  mentioned  certainly  will  not 
account  for  it. 

If,  however,  during  these  years  we  have  little  testimo- 
ny about  Dryden,  we  have  three  documents  from  his  own 
hand  which  are  of  no  little  interest.  Although  Dryden 
was  one  of  the  most  late-writing  of  English  poets,  he  had 
got  into  print  before  he  left  Westminster.  A  promising 
pupil  of  that  school,  Lord  Hastings,  had  died  of  small-pox, 
and,  according  to  the  fashion  of  the  time,  a  tombeau,  as  it 
would  have  been  called  in  France,  was  published,  containing 
elegies  by  a  very  large  number  of  authors,  ranging  from 
Westminster  boys  to  the  already  famous  names  of  Waller 
and  Denham.  Somewhat  later  an  epistle  commendatory 
was  contributed  by  Dryden  to  a  volume  of  religious  verse 
by  his  friend  John  Hoddesdon.  Later  stiD,  and  probably 
after  he  had  taken  his  degree,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  his 
cousin.  Honor  Driden,  daughter  of  the  reigning  baronet 
of  Canons  Ashby,  which  the  young  lady  had  the  grace 
to  keep.  All  these  juvenile  productions  have  been  very 
severely  judged.  As  to  the  poems,  the  latest  writer  on 
the  subject,  a  writer  in  the  Quarterly/  Review,  whom  I  cer- 
tainly do  not  name  otherwise  than  honoris  causA,  pro- 
nounces the  one  execrable,  and  the  other  inferior  to  the 
juvenile  productions  of  that  miserable  poetaster,  Kirke 
White.  It  seems  to  this  reviewer  that  Dryden  had  at  this 
time  "  no  ear  for  verse,  no  command  of  poetic  diction, 


8  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

no  sense  of  poetic  taste."  As  to  the  letter,  even  Scott 
describes  it  as  "  alternately  coarse  and  pedantic."  I  am 
in  hopeless  discord  with  these  authorities,  both  of  whom 
I  respect.  Certainly  neither  the  elegy  on  Lord  Hastings, 
nor  the  complimentary  poem  to  Hoddesdon,  nor  the  letter 
to  Honor  Driden,  is  a  masterpiece.  But  all  three  show, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  a  considerable  literary  faculty,  a  remark- 
able feeling  after  poetic  style,  and  above  all  the  peculiar 
virtue  which  was  to  be  Dryden's  own.  They  are  all  sat- 
urated with  conceits,  and  the  conceit  was  the  reigning 
delicacy  of  the  time.  Now,  if  there  is  one  thing  more 
characteristic  and  more  honourably  characteristic  of  Dry- 
den  than  another,  it  is  that  he  was  emphatically  of  his 
time.  No  one  ever  adopted  more  thoroughly  and  more 
unconsciously  the  motto  as  to  Spartam  nactus  es.  He  tried 
every  fashion,  and  where  the  fashion  was  capable  of  being 
brought  sub  specie  cetemitatis  he  never  failed  so  to  bring  it. 
Where  it  was  not  so  capable  he  never  f^ed  to  abandon 
it  and  to  substitute  something  better.  A  man  of  this  tem- 
perament (which  it  may  be  observed  is  a  mingling  of  the 
critical  and  the  poetical  temperaments)  is  not  likely  to 
find  his  way  early  or  to  find  it  at  all  without  a  good  many 
preliminary  wanderings.  But  the  two  poems  so  severely 
condemned,  though  they  are  certainly  not  good  poems,  are 
beyond  all  doubt  possessed  of  the  elements  of  goodness. 
I  doubt  myself  whether  any  one  can  fairly  judge  them 
who  has  not  passed  through  a  novitiate  of  careful  study 
of  the  minor  poets  of  his  own  day.  By  doing  this  one 
acquires  a  certain  faculty  of  distinguishing,  as  Th6ophile 
Gautier  once  put  it  in  his  own  case,  "  the  sheep  of  Hugo 
from  the  goats  of  Scribe."  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that 
an  intelligent  reviewer  in  the  year  1650  would  have  rank- 
ed Dryden,  though  perhaps  with  some  misgivings,  among 


I.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  « 

the  sheep.  The  faults  are  simply  an  exaggeration  of  the 
prevailing  style,  the  merits  are  different. 

As  for  the  epistle  to  Honor  Driden,  Scott  must  surely 
have  been  thinking  of  the  evil  counsellors  who  wished  him 
to  bowdlerise  glorious  John,  when  he  called  it  "coarse." 
There  is  nothing  in  it  but  the  outspoken  gallantry  of  an 
age  which  was  not  afraid  of  speaking  out,  and  the  prose 
style  is  already  of  no  inconsiderable  merit.  It  should  be 
observed,  however,  that  a  most  unsubstantial  romance  has 
been  built  up  on  this  letter,  and  that  Miss  Honor's  father. 
Sir  John  Driden,  has  had  all  sorts  of  anathemas  launched 
at  him,  in  the  Locksley  Hall  style,  for  damming  the  course 
of  true  love.  There  is  no  evidence  whatever  to  prove  this 
crime  against  Sir  John.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  mankind 
almost  invariably  to  fall  in  love  with  its  cousins,  and — 
fortunately  according  to  some  physiologists — by  no  means 
invariably  to  marry  them.  That  Dryden  seriously  aspired 
to  his  cousin's  hand  there  is  no  proof,  and  none  that  her 
father  refused  to  sanction  the  marriage.  On  the  contrary, 
his  foes  accuse  him  of  being  a  dreadful  flirt,  and  of  mak- 
ing "  the  young  blushing  virgins  die  "  for  him  in  a  miscel- 
laneous but  probably  harmless  manner.  All  that  is  posi- 
tively known  on  the  subject  is  that  Honor  never  married, 
that  the  cousins  were  on  excellent  terms  some  half-century 
after  this  fervent  epistle,  and  that  Miss  Driden  is  said  to 
have  treasured  the  letter  and  shown  it  with  pride,  which  is 
much  more  reconcilable  with  the  idea  of  a  harmless  flirta- 
tion than  of  a  great  passion  tragically  cut  short. 

At  the  time  of  the  writing  of  this  epistle  Dryden  was, 

indeed,  not  exactly  an  eligible  suitor.    His  father  had  just 

died — 1654 — and  had  left  him  two-thirds  of  the  Blakesley 

estates,  with  a  reversion  to  the  other  third  at  the  death  of 

hi«  mother.    The  land  extended  to  a  couple  of  hundred 
B  J* 


10  DRYDEN.  [chap, 

acres  or  thereabouts,  and  the  rent,  which  with  characteris. 
tic  generosity  Dryden  never  increased,  though  rents  went 
up  in  his  time  enormously,  amounted  to  60/.  a  year.  Dry- 
den's  two-thirds  were  estimated  by  Malone  at  the  end  of 
the  last  century  to  be  worth  about  120/.  income  of  that 
day,  and  this  certainly  equals  at  least  200/.  to-day.  With 
this  to  fall  back  upon,  and  with  the  influence  of  the  Dri- 
den  and  Pickering  families,  any  bachelor  in  those  days 
might  be  considered  provided  with  prospects ;  but  exacting 
parents  might  consider  the  total  inadequate  to  the  support 
of  a  wife  and  family.  Sir  John  Driden  is  said,  though  a 
fanatical  Puritan,  to  have  been  a  man  of  no  very  strong 
intellect,  and  he  certainly  did  not  feather  his  nest  in  the 
way  which  was  open  to  any  defender  of  the  liberties  of 
the  people.  Sir  Gilbert  Pickering,  who,  in  consequence 
of  the  intermarriages  before  alluded  to,  was  doubly  Dry- 
den's  cousin,  was  wiser  in  his  generation.  He  was  one  of 
the  few  members  of  the  Long  Parliament  who  judiciously 
attached  themselves  to  the  fortunes  of  Cromwell,  and  was 
plentifully  rewarded  with  fines,  booty,  places,  and  honours, 
by  the  Protector.  When  Dryden  finally  left  Cambridge 
in  1657,  he  is  said  to  have  attached  himself  to  this  kins- 
man. And  at  the  end  of  the  next  year  he  wrote  his  re- 
markable Heroic  Stanzas  on  Cromwell's  death.  This 
poem  must  have  at  once  put  out  of  doubt  his  literary 
merits.  There  was  assuredly  no  English  poet  then  living, 
except  Milton  and  Cowley,  who  could  possibly  have  writ- 
ten it,  and  it  was  suflBciently  different  from  the  style  of 
either  of  those  masters.  Taking  the  four -line  stanza, 
which  Davenant  had  made  popular,  the  poet  starts  with 
a  bold  opening,  in  which  the  stately  march  of  the  verse  is 
not  to  be  disguised  by  all  the  frippery  of  erudition  which 
loads  it : 


,.j  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  11 

"  And  now  'tis  time ;  for  their  officious  haste, 
Who  would  before  have  borne  him  to  the  sky, 
Like  eager  Romans,  ere  all  rites  were  past, 
Did  let  too  soon  the  sacred  eagle  fly." 

The  whole  poem  contains  but  thirty -seven  of  these 
stanzas,  but  it  is  full  of  admirable  lines  and  thoughts.  No 
doubt  there  are  plenty  of  conceits  as  well,  and  Dryden 
would  not  have  been  Dryden  if  there  had  not  been.  But 
at  the  same  time  the  singular  justness  which  always  marked 
his  praise,  as  well  as  his  blame,  is  as  remarkable  in  the 
matter  of  the  poem,  as  the  force  and  vigour  of  the  diction 
and  versification  are  in  its  manner.  To  this  day  no  better 
eulogy  of  the  Protector  has  been  written,  and  the  poet 
with  a  remarkable  dexterity  evades,  without  directly  de- 
nying, the  more  awkward  points  in  his  hero's  career  and 
character.  One  thing  which  must  strike  all  careful  readers 
of  the  poem  is  the  entire  absence  of  any  attack  on  the 
royalist  party.  To  attempt,  as  Shadwell  and  other  libellers 
attempted  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  to  construe  a  fa- 
mous couplet — 

"  He  fought  to  end  our  fighting,  and  essayed 
To  staunch  the  blood  by  breathing  of  the  vein — " 

into  an  approval  of  the  execution  of  Charles  I.,  is  to  wrest 
the  sense  of  the  original  hopelessly  and  unpardonably. 
Cromwell's  conduct  is  contrasted  with  that  of  those  who 
"  the  quarrel  loved,  but  did  the  cause  abhor,"  who  "  first 
sought  to  inflame  the  parties,  then  to  poise,"  &c.,  i.  e.,  with 
Essex,  Manchester,  and  their  likes ;  and  it  need  hardly  be 
said  that  this  contrast  was  ended  years  before  there  was 
any  question  of  the  king's  death.  Indeed,  to  a  careful 
reader  nowadays  the  Heroic  Stanzas  read  much  more  like 
an  elaborate  attempt  to  hedge  between  the  parties  than 


12  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

like  an  attempt  to  gain  favour  from  the  roundheads  by 
uncompromising  advocacy  of  their  cause.  The  author  is 
one  of  those  "  sticklers  of  the  war "  that  he  himself  de- 
scribes. 

It  is  possible  that  a  certain  half-heartedness  may  have 
been  observed  in  Dryden  by  those  of  his  cousin's  party. 
It  is  possible,  too,  that  Sir  Gilbert  Pickering,  like  Thack- 
eray's Mr.  Scully,  was  a  good  deal  more  bent  on  making 
use  of  his  young  kinsman  than  on  rewarding  him  in  any 
permanent  manner.  At  any  rate,  no  kind  of  preferment 
fell  to  his  lot,  and  the  anarchy  of  the  "  foolish  Ishbosheth  " 
soon  made  any  such  preferment  extremely  improbable. 
Before  long  it  would  appear  that  Dryden  had  definitely 
given  up  whatever  position  he  held  in  Sir  Gilbert  Pick- 
ering's household,  and  had  betaken  himself  to  literature. 
The  fact  of  his  so  betaking  himself  almost  implied  adhe- 
rence to  the  royalist  party.  In  the  later  years  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, English  letters  had  rallied  to  a  certain  extent 
from  the  disarray  into  which  they  were  thrown  by  the 
civil  war,  but  the  centres  of  the  rally  belonged  almost  ex- 
clusively to  the  royalist  party.  Milton  had  long  forsworn 
pure  literature,  to  devote  himself  to  official  duties  with  an 
occasional  personal  polemic  as  a  relief.  Marvell  and 
Wither,  the  two  other  chief  lights  of  the  Puritan  party, 
could  hardly  be  regarded  by  any  one  as  men  of  light  and 
leading,  despite  the  really  charming  lyrics  which  both  of 
them  had  produced.  All  the  other  great  literary  names 
of  the  time  were,  without  exception,  on  the  side  of  the 
exile.  Hobbes  was  a  royalist,  though  a  somewhat  singular 
one ;  Cowley  was  a  royalist ;  Herrick  was  a  royalist,  so  was 
Denham ;  so  was,  as  far  as  he  was  anything,  the  unstable 
Waller.  Moreover,  the  most  practically  active  author  of 
the  day,  the  one  man  of  letters  who  combined  the  power 


I.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  18 

of  organizing  literary  effort  with  the  power  of  himself 
producing  literary  work  of  merit,  was  one  of  the  staunchest 
of  the  king's  friends.  Sir  William  Davenant,  without  any 
political  concession,  had  somehow  obtained  leave  from  the 
republican  government  to  reintroduce  theatrical  entertain- 
ments of  a  kind,  and  moderate  royalists,  like  Evelyn,  with 
an  interest  in  literature  and  the  arts  and  sciences,  were  re- 
turning to  their  homes  and  looking  out  for  the  good  time 
coming.  That  Dryden,  under  these  circumstances,  having 
at  the  time  a  much  more  vivid  interest  in  literature  than 
in  politics,  and  belonging  as  he  did  rather  to  the  Presby- 
terian faction,  who  were  everywhere  returning  to  the  roy- 
alist political  faith,  than  to  the  Independent  republicans, 
should  become  royalist  in  principle,  was  nothing  surprising. 
Those  who  reproach  him  with  the  change  (if  change  it 
was)  forget  that  he  shared  it  with  the  immense  majority 
of  the  nation.  For  the  last  half-century  the  literary  cur- 
rent has  been  so  entirely  on  the  Puritan  side  that  we  are 
probably  in  danger  of  doing  at  least  as  much  injustice  to 
the  royalists  as  was  at  one  time  done  to  their  opponents. 
One  thing  in  particular  I  have  never  seen  fairly  put  as  ac- 
counting for  the  complete  royalization  of  nearly  the  whole 
people,  and  it  is  a  thing  which  has  a  special  bearing  on 
Dryden.  It  has  been  said  that  his  temperament  was 
specially  and  exceptionally  English.  Now  one  of  the  most 
respectable,  if  not  the  most  purely  rational  features  of  the 
English  character,  is  its  objection  to  wanton  bloodshed 
for  political  causes,  without  form  of  law.  It  was  this,  be- 
yond all  question,  that  alienated  the  English  from  James 
the  Second ;  it  was  this  that  in  the  heyday  of  Hanoverian 
power  made  them  turn  a  cold  shoulder  on  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland;  it  was  this  which  enlisted  them  almost  as 
one  man  against  the  French  revolutionists;   it  was  this 


14  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

which  brought  about  in  our  own  days  a  political  move- 
ment to  which  there  is  no  need  to  refer  more  particular- 
ly. Now,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  either  as  the  losing 
party  or  for  other  reasons,  the  royalists  were  in  the  great 
civil  war  almost  free  from  the  charge  of  reckless  blood- 
shedding.  Their  troops  were  disorderly,  and  given  to 
plunder,  but  not  to  cruelty.  No  legend  even  charges 
against  Astley  or  Goring,  against  Rupert  or  Lunsf  ord,  any- 
thing like  the  Drogheda  massacre — the  effect  of  which  on 
the  general  mind  Defoe,  an  unexceptionable  witness,  has 
preserved  by  a  chance  phrase  in  Robinson  Crusoe — or  the 
hideous  bloodbath  of  the  Irishwomen  after  Naseby,  or  the 
brutal  butchery  of  Dr.  Hudson  at  Woodcroft,  in  Dryden's 
own  county,  where  the  soldiers  chopped  off  the  priest's 
fingers  as  he  clung  to  the  gurgoyles  of  the  tower,  and 
thrust  him  back  with  pikes  into  the  moat  which,  mutilated 
as  he  was,  he  had  managed  to  swim.  A  certain  humanity 
and  absence  of  bloodthirstiness  are  among  Dryden's  most 
creditable  characteristics,*  and  these  excesses  of  fanaticism 
are  not  at  all  unlikely  to  have  had  their  share  in  determin- 
ing him  to  adopt  the  winning  side  when  at  last  it  won. 
But  it  is  perhaps  more  to  the  purpose  that  his  literary  lean- 
ings must  of  themselves  have  inevitably  inclined  him  in  the 
same  direction.  There  was  absolutely  no  opening  for  lit- 
erature on  the  republican  side,  a  fact  of  which  no  better 

*  The  too  famous  Political  Prologues  may,  perhaps,  be  quoted 
against  me  here.  I  have  only  to  remark  :  first,  that,  bad  as  they  are, 
they  form  an  infinitesimal  portion  of  Dryden's  work,  and  are  in  glar- 
ing contrast  with  the  sentiments  pervading  that  work  as  a  whole ; 
secondly,  that  they  were  written  at  a  time  of  political  excitement  un- 
paralleled in  history,  save  once  at  Athens  and  once  or  twice  at  Paris. 
But  I  cannot  help  adding  that  their  denouncers  usually  seem  to  me 
to  be  at  least  partially  animated  by  the  notion  that  Dryden  wished 
the  wrong  people  to  be  hanged. 


I.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  15 

proof  can  be  afforded  than  the  small  salary  at  which  the 
first  man  of  letters  then  living  was  hired  by  a  government 
which,  whatever  faults  it  had,  certainly  did  not  sin  by  re- 
warding its  other  servants  too  meagrely.  That  Dryden  at 
this  time  had  any  deep-set  theological  or  political  preju- 
dices is  very  improbable.  He  certainly  had  not,  like  But- 
ler, noted  for  years  the  faults  and  weaknesses  of  the  domi- 
nant party,  so  as  to  enshrine  them  in  immortal  ridicule 
when  the  time  should  come.  But  he  was  evidently  an 
ardent  devotee  of  literature ;  he  was  not  averse  to  the 
pleasures  of  the  town,  which  if  not  so  actively  interfered 
with  by  the  Commonwealth  as  is  sometimes  thought,  were 
certainly  not  encouraged  by  it ;  and  his  friends  and  asso- 
ciates must  have  been  royalists  almost  to  a  man.  So  he 
threw  himself  at  once  on  that  side  when  the  chance  came, 
and  had  probably  thrown  himself  there  in  spirit  some 
time  before.  The  state  of  the  literature  in  which  he  thus 
took  service  must  be  described  before  wc  go  any  farther. 

The  most  convenient  division  of  literature  is  into  poetry, 
drama,  and  prose.  With  regard  to  poetry,  the  reigning 
style  at  the  advent  of  Dryden  was,  as  everybody  knows, 
the  peculiar  style  unfortunately  baptized  as  "  metaphysi- 
cal." The  more  catholic  criticism  of  the  last  100  years 
has  disembarrassed  this  poetry  of  much  of  the  odium 
which  once  hung  round  it,  without,  however,  doing  full 
justice  to  its  merits.  In  Donne,  especially,  the  king  of  the 
school,  the  conceits  and  laboured  fancies  which  distinguish 
it  frequently  reach  a  hardly  surpassed  height  of  poetical 
beauty.  When  Donne  speculates  as  to  the  finding  on  the 
body  of  his  dead  lover 

"  A  bracelet  of  bright  hair  about  the  bone," 
when  he  tells  us  how — 


1«  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

"  I  long  to  talk  with  some  old  lover's  ghost, 
Who  died  before  the  god  of  love  was  born ;" 

the  effect  is  that  of  summer  lightning  on  a  dark  night 
suddenly  exposing  unsuspected  realms  of  fantastic  and 
poetical  suggestion.  But  at  its  worst  the  school  was  cer- 
tainly bad  enough,  and  its  badnesses  had  already  been  ex- 
hibited by  Dryden  with  considerable  felicity  in  his  poem 
on  Lord  Hastings  and  the  small- pox.  I  really  do  not 
know  that  in  all  Johnson's  carefully  picked  specimens  in 
his  life  of  Cowley,  a  happier  absurdity  is  to  be  found  than 

"Each  little  pimple  had  a  tear  in  it, 
To  wail  the  fault  its  rising  did  commit." 

Of  such  a  school  as  this,  though  it  lent  itself  more  direct- 
ly than  is  generally  thought  to  the  unequalled  oddities 
of  Butler,  little  good  in  the  way  of  serious  poetry  could 
come.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great  romantic  school  was 
practically  over,  and  Milton,  its  last  survivor,  was,  as  has 
been  said,  in  a  state  of  poetical  eclipse.  There  was,  there- 
fore growing  up  a  kind  of  school  of  good  sense  in  poetry, 
of  which  Waller,  Denham,  Cowley,  and  Davenant  were  the 
chiefs.  Waller  derives  most  of  his  fame  from  his  lyrics, 
inferior  as  these  are  to  those  of  Herrick  and  Carew.  Cow- 
ley was  a  metaphysician .  with  a  strong  hankering  after 
something  different.  Denham,  having  achieved  one  ad- 
mirable piece  of  versification,  had  devoted  himself  chiefly 
to  doggrel ;  but  Davenant,  though  perhaps  not  so  good  a 
poet  as  any  of  the  three,  was  a  more  living  influence.  His 
early  works,  especially  his  dirge  on  Shakspeare  and  his 
exquisite  lines  to  the  Queen,  are  of  the  best  stamp  of  the 
older  school.  His  Gondibert,  little  as  it  is  now  read,  and 
unsuccessful  as  the  quatrain  in  which  it  is  written  must  al- 
ways be  for  a  very  long  work,  is  better  than  any  long  nar- 


I.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  17 

rative  poem,  for  many  a  year  before  and  after.  Both  his 
poetical  and  his  dramatic  activity  (of  which  more  anon) 
were  incessant,  and  were  almost  always  exerted  in  the  di- 
rection of  innovation.  But  the  real  importance  of  these 
four  writers  was  the  help  they  gave  to  the  development  of 
the  heroic  couplet,  the  predestined  common  form  of  poetry 
of  the  more  important  kind  for  a  century  and  a  half  to 
come.  The  heroic  couplet  was,  of  course,  no  novelty  in 
English ;  but  it  had  hitherto  been  only  fitfully  patronized 
for  poems  of  length,  and  had  not  been  adapted  for  general 
use.  The  whole  structure  of  the  decasyllabic  line  before 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  ill  calculated 
for  the  perfecting  of  the  couplet.  Accustomed  either  to 
the  stately  plainness  of  blank  verse,  or  to  the  elaborate  in- 
tricacies of  the  stanza,  writers  had  got  into  the  habit  of 
communicating  to  their  verse  a  slow  and  somewhat  lan- 
guid movement.  The  satiric  poems  in  which  the  couplet 
had  been  most  used  were,  either  by  accident  or  design, 
couched  in  the  roughest  possible  verse,  so  rough  that  in 
the  hands  of  Marston  and  Donne  it  almost  ceased  to  be 
capable  of  scansion.  In  general,  the  couplet  had  two 
drawbacks.  Either  it  was  turned  by  means  of  enjambe- 
ments  into  something  very  like  rhythmic  prose,  with 
rhymes  straying  about  at  apparently  indefinite  intervals, 
or  it  was  broken  up  into  a  staccato  motion  by  the  neglect 
to  support  and  carry  on  the  rhythm  at  the  termination 
of  the  distichs.  All  the  four  poets  mentioned,  especially 
the  three  first,  did  much  to  fit  the  couplet  for  miscellane- 
ous work.  All  of  them  together,  it  is  hardly  needful  to 
say,  did  not  do  so  much  as  the  young  Cambridge  man 
who,  while  doing  bookseller's  work  for  Herringman  the 
publisher,  hanging  about  the  coffee-houses,  and  planning 
plays  with  Davenant  and  Sir  Robert  Howard,  was  wait* 
2 


18  DRTDEN.  [char 

ing  for  opportunity  and  impulse  to  help  him  to  make 
his  way. 

The  drama  was  in  an  even  more  critical  state  than 
poetry  pure  and  simple,  and  here  Davenant  was  the  im- 
portant person.  All  the  giant  race  except  Shirley  were 
dead,  and  Shirley  had  substituted  a  kind  of  tragedie  bour- 
geoise  for  the  work  of  his  masters.  Other  practitioners 
chiefly  favoured  the  example  of  one  of  the  least  imitable 
of  those  masters,  and  out -forded  Ford  in  horrors  of  all 
kinds,  while  the  comedians  clung  still  more  tightly  to  the 
humour-comedy  of  Jonson.  Davenant  himself  had  made 
abundant  experiments — experiments,  let  it  be  added,  some- 
times of  no  small  merit — in  both  these  styles.  But  the 
occupations  of  tragedy  and  comedy  were  gone,  and  the 
question  was  how  to  find  a  new  one  for  them.  Davenant 
succeeded  in  procuring  permission  from  the  Protector, 
who,  like  most  Englishmen  of  the  time,  was  fond  of  music, 
to  give  what  would  now  be  called  entertainments ;  and  the 
entertainments  soon  developed  into  something  like  regu- 
lar stage  plays.  But  Shakspeare's  godson,  with  his  keen 
manager's  appreciation  of  the  taste  of  the  public,  and  his 
travelled  experience,  did  not  content  himself  with  deviating 
cautiously  into  the  old  paths.  He  it  was  who,  in  the  Siege 
of  Rhodes,  introduced  at  once  into  England  the  opera,  and 
a  less  long-lived  but,  in  a  literary  point  of  view,  more  im- 
portant variety,  the  heroic  play,  the  latter  of  which  always 
retained  some  tinge  of  the  former.  There  are  not  many 
subjects  on  which,  to  put  it  plainly,  more  rubbish  has  been 
talked  than  the  origin  of  the  heroic  play.  Very  few  Eng- 
lishmen have  ever  cared  to  examine  accurately  the  connex- 
ion between  this  singular  growth  and  the  classical  tragedy 
already  flourishing  in  France ;  still  fewer  have  ever  cared 
to  investigate  the  origins  of  that  classical  tragedy  itself. 


I.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  19 

The  blundering  attribution  of  Dryden  and  bis  rivals  to 
Corneille  and  Racine,  the  more  blundering  attribution  of 
Corneille  and  Racine  to  the  Scudery  romance  (as  if  some- 
body should  father  Shelley  on  Monk  Lewis),  has  been  gen- 
erally accepted  without  much  hesitation,  though  Dryden 
himself  has  pointed  out  that  there  is  but  little  connexion 
between  the  French  and  the  English  drama;  and  though 
the  history  of  the  French  drama  itself  is  perfectly  intelligi- 
ble, and  by  no  means  difficult  to  trace.  The  French  clas- 
sical drama  is  the  direct  descendant  of  the  drama  of  Sen- 
eca, first  imitated  by  Jodelle  and  Gamier  in  the  days  of 
the  Pleiade ;  nor  did  it  ever  quit  that  model,  though  in 
the  first  thirty  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  something 
was  borrowed  from  Spanish  sources.  The  English  heroic 
drama,  on  the  other  hand,  which  Davenant  invented,  which 
Sir  Robert  Howard  and  Lord  Orrery  made  fashionable,  and 
for  which  Dryden  achieved  a  popularity  of  nearly  twenty 
years,  was  one  of  the  most  cosmopolitan  —  I  had  almost 
said  the  most  mongrel — of  literary  productions.  It  adopt- 
ed the  English  freedom  of  action,  multiplicity  of  character, 
and  licence  of  stirring  scenes  acted  coram  populo.  It  bor- 
rowed lyrical  admixture  from  Italy ;  exaggerated  and  bom- 
bastic language  came  to  it  from  Spain ;  and  to  France  it 
owed  little  more  than  its  rhymed  dialogue,  and  perhaps 
something  of  its  sighs  and  flames.  The  disadvantages  of 
rhyme  in  dramatic  writing  seem  to  modem  Englishmen 
so  great,  that  they  sometimes  find  it  difficult  to  understand 
how  any  rational  being  could  exchange  the  blank  verse 
of  Shakspeare  for  the  rhymes  of  Dryden,  much  more  for 
the  rhymes  of  his  contemporaries  and  predecessors.  But 
this  omits  the  important  consideration  that  it  was  not  the 
blank  verse  of  Shakspeare  or  of  Fletcher  that  was  thus 
exchanged.     In  the  three-quarters  of  a  century,  or  there* 


20  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

abouts,  which  elapsed  between  the  beginning  of  the  great 
dramatic  era  and  the  Restoration,  the  chief  vehicle  of  the 
drama  had  degenerated  full  as  much  as  the  drama  itself; 
and  the  blank  verse  of  the  plays  subsequent  to  Ford  is  of 
anything  but  Shakspearian  quality  —  is,  indeed,  in  many- 
cases  such  as  is  hardly  to  be  recognised  for  verse  at  all. 
Between  this  awkward  and  inharmonious  stuff  and  the 
comparatively  polished  and  elegant  couplets  of  the  inno- 
vators there  could  be  little  comparison,  especially  when 
Dryden  had  taken  up  the  couplet  himself. 

Lastly,  in  prose  the  time  was  pretty  obviously  calling 
for  a  reform.  There  were  great  masters  of  English  prose 
living  when  Dryden  joined  the  literary  world  of  London, 
but  there  was  no  generally  accepted  style  for  the  journey- 
work  of  literature.  Milton  and  Taylor  could  arrange  the 
most  elaborate  symphonies ;  Hobbes  could  write  with  a 
crabbed  clearness  as  lucid  almost  as  the  flowing  sweetness 
of  Berkeley ;  but  these  were  exceptions.  The  endless  sen- 
tences out  of  which  Clarendon  is  wont  just  to  save  him- 
self, when  his  readers  are  wondering  whether  breath  and 
brain  will  last  out  their  involution ;  the  hopeless  coils  of 
parenthesis  and  afterthought  in  which  Cromwell's  speech 
lay  involved,  till  Mr.  Carlyle  was  sent  on  a  special  mission 
to  disentangle  them,  show  the  dangers  and  difficulties  of 
the  ordinary  prose  style  of  the  day.  It  was  terribly  cum- 
bered about  quotations,  which  it  introduced  with  merciless 
frequency.  It  had  no  notion  of  a  unit  of  style  in  the  sen- 
tence. It  indulged,  without  the  slightest  hesitation,  in  ev- 
ery detour  and  involution  of  second  thoughts  and  by-the- 
way  qualifications.  So  far  as  any  models  were  observed, 
those  models  were  chiefly  taken  from  the  inflected  lan- 
guages of  Greece  and  Rome,  where  the  structural  altera- 
tions of  the  words  according  to  their  grammatical  con- 


I.]  BEFORE  THE  RESTORATION.  21 

nexion  are  for  the  most  part  suflBcient  to  make  the  mean- 
ing tolerably  clear.  Nothing  so  much  as  the  lack  of  in- 
flexions saved  our  prose  at  this  time  from  sharing  the  fate 
of  German,  and  involving  itself  almost  beyond  the  reach 
of  extrication.  The  common  people,  when  not  bent  upon 
fine  language,  could  speak  and  write  clearly  and  straight- 
forwardly, as  Bunyan's  works  show  to  this  day  to  all  who 
care  to  read.  But  scholars  and  divines  deserved  much  less 
well  of  their  mother  tongue.  It  may,  indeed,  be  said  that 
prose  was  infinitely  worse  off  than  poetry.  In  the  latter 
there  had  been  an  excellent  style,  if  not  one  perfectly  suited 
for  all  ends,  and  it  had  degenerated.  In  the  former,  noth- 
ing like  a  general  prose  style  had  ever  yet  been  elaborated 
at  all ;  what  had  been  done  had  been  done  chiefly  in  the 
big-bow-wow  manner,  as  Dryden's  editor  might  have  called 
it.  For  light  miscellaneous  work,  neither  fantastic  nor 
solemn,  the  demand  was  only  just  being  created.  Cowley, 
indeed,  wrote  well,  and,  comparatively  speaking,  elegantly, 
but  his  prose  work  was  small  in  extent  and  little  read  in 
comparison  to  his  verse.  Tillotson  was  Dryden's  own 
contemporary,  and  hardly  preceded  him  in  the  task  of 
reform. 

From  this  short  notice  it  will  be  obvious  that  the  gen- 
eral view,  according  to  which  a  considerable  change  took 
place  and  was  called  for  at  the  Restoration,  is  correct,  not- 
withstanding the  attempts  recently  made  to  prove  the  con- 
trary by  a  learned  writer.  Professor  Masson's  lists  of  men 
of  letters  and  of  the  dates  of  their  publication  of  their 
works  prove,  if  he  will  pardon  my  saying  so,  nothing. 
The  actual  spirit  of  the  time  is  to  be  judged  not  from  the 
production  of  works  of  writers  who,  as  they  one  by  one 
dropped  off,  left  no  successors,  but  from  those  who  struck 
root  downwards  and  blossomed  upwards  in  the  general 


22  DRYDEN.  [chap,  l 

literary  soil.  Milton  is  not  a  writer  of  the  Restoration, 
though  his  greatest  works  appeared  after  it,  and  though  he 
survived  it  nearly  fifteen  years.  Nor  was  Taylor,  nor  Claren- 
don, nor  Cowley :  hardly  even  Davenant,  or  Waller,  or  But- 
ler, or  Denham.  The  writers  of  the  Restoration  are  those 
whose  works  had  the  seeds  of  life  in  them ;  who  divined 
or  formed  the  popular  tastes  of  the  period,  who  satisfied 
that  taste,  and  who  trained  up  successors  to  prosecute  and 
modify  their  own  work.  The  interval  between  the  prose 
and  the  poetry  of  Dryden  and  the  prose  and  the  poetry  of 
Milton  is  that  of  an  entire  generation,  notwithstanding  the 
manner  in  which,  chronologically  speaking,  they  overlap. 
The  objects  which  the  reformer,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, set  before  him  have  been  sufficiently  indicated. 
It  must  be  the  task  of  the  following  chapters  to  show 
how  and  to  what  extent  he  effected  a  reform ;  what  the 
nature  of  that  reform  was ;  what  was  the  value  of  the  work 
which  in  effecting  it  he  contributed  to  the  literature  of  his 
country. 


CHAPTER  IL 

EARLY    LITERARY    WORK. 

The  foregoing  chapter  will  have  already  shown  the  chief 
diflSculty  of  writing  a  life  of  Dryden — the  almost  entire 
absence  of  materials.  At  the  Restoration  the  poet  was 
nearly  thirty  years  old ;  and  of  positive  information  as  to 
his  life  during  these  thirty  years  we  have  half-a-dozen 
dates,  the  isolated  fact  of  his  mishap  at  Trinity,  a  single 
letter  and  three  poems,  not  amounting  in  all  to  three  hun- 
dred lines.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  even  subsequently, 
during  his  forty  years  of  fame  and  literary  activity,  posi- 
tive information  as  to  his  life  is  plentiful.  His  works  are 
still  the  best  life  of  him,  and  in  so  far  as  a  biography  of 
Dryden  is  filled  with  any  matter  not  purely  literary,  it 
must  for  the  most  part  be  filled  with  controversy  as  to  his 
political  and  religious  opinions  and  conduct  rather  than 
with  accounts  of  his  actual  life  and  conversation.  Omit- 
ting for  the  present  literary  work,  the  next  fact  that  we 
have  to  record  after  the  Restoration  is  one  of  some  impor- 
tance, though  as  before  the  positive  information  obtaina- 
ble in  connexion  with  it  is  but  scanty.  On  the  Ist  of  De- 
cember, 1663,  Dryden  was  married  at  St.  Swithin's  Church 
to  Lady  Elizabeth  Howard,  eldest  daughter  of  the  Earl  of 
Berkshire. 
This  marriage,  like  most  of  the  scanty  events  of  Dry- 


24  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

den's  life,  has  been  made  the  occasion  of  much  and  unnec- 
essary controversy.  The  libellers  of  the  Popish  Plot  dis- 
turbances twenty  years  later  declared  that  the  character 
of  the  bride  was  doubtful,  and  that  her  brothers  had  acted 
towards  Dryden  in  somewhat  the  same  way  as  the  Harail- 
tons  did  towards  Grammont.  A  letter  of  hers  to  the  Earl 
of  Chesterfield,  which  was  published  about  half  a  century 
ago,  has  been  used  to  support  the  first  charge,  besides 
abundant  arguments  as  to  the  unlikelihood  of  an  earl's 
daughter  marrying  a  poor  poet  for  love.  It  is  one  of  the 
misfortunes  of  prominent  men  that  when  fact  is  silent 
about  their  lives  fiction  is  always  busy.  If  we  brush  away 
the  cobwebs  of  speculation,  there  is  nothing  in  the  least 
suspicious  about  this  matter.  Lord  Berkshire  had  a  large 
family  and  a  small  property.  Dryden  himself  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  well  born  and  well  connected.  That  some  of 
his  sisters  had  married  tradesmen  seems  to  Scott  likely  to 
have  been  shocking  to  the  Howards ;  but  he  must  surely 
have  forgotten  the  famous  story  of  the  Earl  of  Bedford's 
objection  to  be  raised  a  step  in  the  peerage  because  it 
would  make  it  awkward  for  the  younger  scions  of  the 
house  of  Russell  to  go  into  trade.  The  notion  of  an  ab- 
solute severance  between  Court  and  City  at  that  time  is 
one  of  the  many  unhistorical  fictions  which  have  somehow 
or  other  obtained  currency.  Dryden  was  already  an  inti- 
mate friend  of  Sir  Robert  Howard,  if  not  also  of  the  other 
brother,  Edward,  and  perhaps  it  is  not  unnoteworthy  that 
Lady  Elizabeth  was  five-and-twenty,  an  age  in  those  days 
Bomewhat  mature,  and  one  at  which  a  young  lady  would 
be  thought  wise  by  her  family  in  accepting  any  creditable 
offer.  As  to  the  Chesterfield  letter,  the  evidence  it  con- 
tains can  only  satisfy  minds  previously  made  up.  It  tes- 
tifies certainly  to  something  like  a  flirtation,  and  suggests 


n.]  EARLY  LITERARY  WORK.  25 

an  interview,  but  there  is  nothing  in  it  at  all  compromis- 
ing. The  libels  already  mentioned  are  perfectly  vague  and 
wholly  untrustworthy. 

It  seems,  though  on  no  very  definite  evidence,  that  the 
marriage  was  not  altogether  a  happy  one.  Dryden  ap- 
pears to  have  acquired  some  small  property  in  Wiltshire ; 
perhaps  also  a  royal  grant  which  was  made  to  Lady  Eliz- 
abeth in  recognition  of  her  father's  services;  and  Lord 
Berkshire's  Wiltshire  house  of  Charlton  became  a  country 
retreat  for  the  poet.  But  his  wife  was,  it  is  said,  ill-tem- 
pered and  not  overburdened  with  brains,  and  he  himself 
was  probably  no  more  a  model  of  conjugal  propriety  than 
most  of  his  associates.  I  say  probably,  for  here,  too,  it  is 
astonishing  how  the  evidence  breaks  down  when  it  is  ex- 
amined, or  rather  how  it  vanishes  altogether  into  air.  Mr. 
J.  R.  Green  has  roundly  informed  the  world  that  "  Dryden's 
life  was  that  of  a  libertine,  and  his  marriage  with  a  woman 
who  was  yet  more  dissolute  than  himself  only  gave  a  new 
spur  to  his  debaucheries."  We  have  seen  what  foundation 
there  is  for  this  gross  charge  against  Lady  Elizabeth ;  now 
let  us  see  what  ground  there  is  for  the  charge  against  Dry- 
den. There  are  the  libels  of  Shadwell  and  the  rest  of  the 
crew,  to  which  not  even  Mr.  Christie,  a  very  severe  judge 
of  Dryden's  moral  character,  assigns  the  slightest  weight ; 
there  is  the  immorality  ascribed  to  Bayes  in  the  Rehearsal, 
a  very  pretty  piece  of  evidence  indeed,  seeing  that  Bayes 
is  a  confused  medley  of  half-a-dozen  persons;  there  is  a 
general  association  by  tradition  of  Dryden's  name  with 
that  of  Mrs.  Reeve,  a  beautiful  actress  of  the  day ;  and 
finally  there  is  a  tremendous  piece  of  scandal  which  is  the 
battle-horse  of  the  devil's  advocates.  A  curious  letter  ap- 
peared in  the  OentlemarCs  Magazine  for  1745,  the  author 
of  which  is  unknown,  though  conjectures,  as  to  which 

c    a*  » 


26  DRYDEN.  tcH^^- 

there  are  diflSculties,  identify  him  with  Dryden's  youthful 
friend  Southern.  "  I  reraember,"  says  this  person,  "  plain 
John  Dryden,  before  he  paid  his  court  with  success  to 
the  great,  in  one  uniform  clothing  of  Norwich  drugget.  I 
have  ate  tarts  with  him  and  Madam  Reeve  at  the  Mul- 
berry Garden,  when  our  author  advanced  to  a  sword  and 
a  Chedreux  wig."  Perhaps  there  is  no  more  curious  in- 
stance of  the  infinitesimal  foundation  on  which  scandal 
builds  than  this  matter  of  Dryden's  immorality.  Putting 
aside  mere  vague  libellous  declamation,  the  one  piece  of 
positive  information  on  the  subject  that  we  have  is  anon- 
ymous, was  made  at  least  seventy  years  after  date,  and 
avers  that  John  Dryden,  a  dramatic  author,  once  ate  tarts 
with  an  actress  and  a  third  person.  This  translated  into 
the  language  of  Mr.  Green  becomes  the  dissoluteness  of  a 
libertine,  spurred  up  to  new  debaucheries. 

It  is  immediately  after  the  marriage  that  we  have  almost 
our  first  introduction  to  Dryden  as  a  live  man  seen  by  live 
human  beings.  And  the  circumstances  of  this  introduc- 
tion are  characteristic  enough.  On  the  3rd  of  February, 
1664,  Pepys  tells  us  that  he  stopped,  as  he  was  going  to 
fetch  his  wife,  at  the  great  coffee-house  in  Covent  Garden, 
and  there  he  found  "  Dryden,  the  poet  I  knew  at  Cam- 
bridge," and  all  the  wits  of  the  town.  The  company 
pleased  Pepys,  and  he  made  a  note  to  the  effect  that  "  it 
will  be  good  coming  thither."  But  the  most  interesting 
thing  is  this  glimpse,  first,  of  the  associates  of  Dryden  at 
the  university ;  secondly,  of  his  installation  at  Will's,  the 
famous  house  of  call,  where  he  was  later  to  reign  as  undis- 
puted monarch ;  and,  thirdly,  of  the  fact  that  he  was  al- 
ready recognised  as  "  Dryden  the  poet."  The  remainder 
of  the  present  chapter  will  best  be  occupied  by  pointing 
out  what  he  had  done,  and  in  brief  space  afterwards  did 


U.J  EARLY  LITERARY  WORK.  2» 

do,  to  earn  that  title,  reserving  the  important  subject  of 
his  dramatic  activity,  which  also  began  about  this  time, 
for  separate  treatment. 

The  lines  on  the  death  of  Lord  Hastings,  and  the  lines 
to  Hoddesdon,  have,  it  has  been  said,  a  certain  promise 
about  them  to  experienced  eyes,  but  it  is  of  that  kind  of 
promise  which,  as  the  same  experience  teaches,  is  at  least 
as  often  followed  by  little  performance  as  by  much.  The 
lines  on  Cromwell  deserve  less  faint  praise.  The  following 
stanzas  exhibit  at  once  the  masculine  strength  and  origi- 
nality which  were  to  be  the  poet's  great  sources  of  power, 
and  the  habit  of  conceited  and  pedantic  allusion  which  he 
had  caught  from  the  fashions  of  the  time : 

"  Swift  and  resistless  through  the  land  he  passed, 
Like  that  bold  Greek  who  did  the  East  subdue, 
And  made  to  battle  such  heroic  haste 
As  if  on  wings  of  victory  he  flew. 

"  He  fought  secure  of  fortune  as  of  fame, 

Till  by  new  maps  the  island  might  be  shown 
Of  conquests,  which  he  strewed  where'er  he  came, 
Thick  as  the  galaxy  with  stars  is  sown. 

"  His  palms,  though  under  weights  they  did  not  stand, 
Still  thrived ;  no  winter  did  his  laurels  fade. 
Heaven  in  his  portrait  showed  a  workman's  hand, 
And  drew  it  perfect,  yet  without  a  shade. 

"  Peace  was  the  prize  of  all  his  toil  and  care, 

Which  war  had  banished,  and  did  now  restore : 
Bologna's  walls  so  mounted  in  the  air 
To  seat  themselves  more  surely  than  before." 

An  impartial  contemporary  critic,  if  he  could  have  an- 
ticipated the  methods  of  a  later  school  of  criticism,  might 
have  had  some  difficulty  in  deciding  whether  the  masterly 
plainness,  directness,  and  vigour  of  the  best  lines  here  ought 


28  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

or  ought  not  to  excuse  the  conceit  about  the  palms  and  the 
weights,  and  the  fearfully  far-fetched  piece  of  fancy  histo- 
ry about  Bologna.  Such  a  critic,  if  he  had  had  the  better 
part  of  discretion,  would  have  decided  in  the  aflBrmative. 
There  were  not  three  poets  then  living  who  could  have 
written  the  best  lines  of  the  Heroic  Stanzas,  and  what  is 
more,  those  lines  were  not  in  the  particular  manner  of 
either  of  the  poets  who,  as  far  as  general  poetical  merit 
goes,  might  have  written  them.  But  the  Kestoration, 
which  for  reasons  given  already  I  must  hold  to  have  been 
genuinely  welcome  to  Dryden,  and  not  a  mere  occasion  of 
profitable  coat-turning,  brought  forth  some  much  less  am- 
biguous utterances.  Astrcea  Redux  (1660),  a  panegyric 
on  the  coronation  (1661),  a  poem  to  Lord  Clarendon 
(1662),  a  few  still  shorter  pieces  of  the  complimentary 
kind  to  Dr.  Charleton  (1663),  to  the  Duchess  of  York 
(1665),  and  to  Lady  Castlemaine  (166-?),  lead  up  to  An- 
nus Mirahilis  at  the  beginning  of  1667,  the  crowning  ef- 
fort of  Dryden's  first  poetical  period,  and  his  last  before 
the  long  absorption  in  purely  dramatic  occupations  which 
lasted  till  the  Popish  Plot  and  its  controversies  evoked 
from  him  the  expression  of  hitherto  unsuspected  powers. 

These  various  pieces  do  not  amount  in  all  to  more  than 
two  thousand  lines,  of  which  nearly  two-thirds  belong  to 
Annus  Mirahilis.  But  they  were  fully  suflBcient  to  show 
that  a  new  poetical  power  had  arisen  in  the  land,  and  their 
qualities,  good  and  bad,  might  have  justified  the  anticipa- 
tion that  the  writer  would  do  better  and  better  work  as  he 
grew  older.  All  the  pieces  enumerated,  with  the  exception 
of  Annus  Mirahilis,  are  in  the  heroic  couplet,  and  their 
versification  is  of  such  a  kind  that  the  relapse  into  the 
quatrain  in  the  longer  poem  is  not  a  little  surprising.  But 
nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  Dryden  than  the  extreme- 


II.]  EARLY  LITERARY  WORK.  29 

ly  tentative  character  of  his  work,  and  he  had  doubtless  not 
yet  satisfied  himself  that  the  couplet  was  suitable  for  nar- 
rative poems  of  any  length,  notwithstanding  the  mastery 
over  it  which  he  must  have  known  himself  to  have  attain- 
ed in  his  short  pieces.  The  very  first  lines  of  Astrcea  Re- 
dux show  this  mastery  clearly  enough. 

"  Now  with  a  general  peace  the  world  was  blest, 
While  ours,  a  world  divided  from  the  rest, 
A  dreadful  quiet  felt,  and  worser  far 
Than  arms,  a  sullen  interval  of  war." 

Here  is  already  the  energy  divine  for  which  the  author 
was  to  be  famed,  and,  in  the  last  line  at  least,  an  instance 
of  the  varied  cadence  and  subtly  -  disposed  music  which 
were,  in  his  hands,  to  free  the  couplet  from  all  charges  of 
monotony  and  tameness.  But  almost  immediately  there 
is  a  falling  oif.  The  poet  goes  off  into  an  unnecessary 
simile  preceded  by  the  hackneyed  and  clumsy  "  thus,"  a 
simile  quite  out  of  place  at  the  opening  of  a  poem,  and 
disfigured  by  the  too  famous,  "  an  horrid  stillness  first  in- 
vades the  ear,"  which  if  it  has  been  extravagantly  blamed 
— and  it  seems  to  me  that  it  has — certainly  will  go  near 
to  be  thought  a  conceit.  But  we  have  not  long  to  wait 
for  another  chord  that  announces  Dryden : 

"  For  his  long  absence  Church  and  State  did  groan, 
Madness  the  pulpit,  faction  seized  the  throne. 
Experienced  age  in  deep  despair  was  lost 
To  see  the  rebel  thrive,  the  loyal  crost. 
Youth,  that  with  joys  had  unacquainted  been, 
Envied  grey  hairs  that  once  good  days  had  seen. 
We  thought  our  sires,  not  with  their  own  content, 
Had,  ere  we  came  to  age,  our  portion  spent." 

Whether  the  matter  of  this  is  suitable  for  poetry  or  not  i« 


so  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

one  of  those  questions  on  which  doctors  will  doubtless 
disagree  to  the  end  of  the  chapter.  But  even  when  we 
look  back  through  the  long  rows  of  practitioners  of  the 
couplet  who  have  succeeded  Dryden,  we  shall,  I  think, 
hardly  find  one  who  is  capable  of  such  masterly  treatment 
of  the  form,  of  giving  to  the  phrase  a  turn  at  once  so  clear 
and  so  individual,  of  weighting  the  verse  with  such  dignity, 
and  at  the  same  time  winging  it  with  such  lightly  flying 
speed.  The  poem  is  injured  by  numerous  passages  in- 
troduced by  the  usual  "  as  "  and  '*  thus  "  and  "  like,"  which 
were  intended  for  ornaments,  and  which  in  fact  simply 
disfigure.  It  is  here  and  there  charged,  after  the  manner 
of  the  day,  with  inappropriate  and  clumsy  learning,  and 
with  doubtful  Latinisms  of  expression.  But  it  is  redeemed 
by  such  lines  as — 

"  When  to  be  God's  anointed  was  his  crime ;" 

as  the  characteristic  gibe  at  the  Covenant  insinuated  by 
the  description  of  the  Guisean  League — 

"  As  holy  and  as  Catholic  as  ours ;" 

as  the  hit  at  the 

"  Polluted  nest 
Whence  legion  twice  before  was  dispossest ;" 

as  the  splendid  couplet  on  the  British  Amphitrite — 

"  Proud  her  returning  prince  to  entertain 
With  the  submitted  fasces  of  the  main." 

Such  lines  as  these  must  have  had  for  the  readers  of  1660 
the  attraction  of  a  novelty  which  only  very  careful  stu- 
dents of  the  literature  of  the  time  can  understand  now. 
The  merits  of  Astrcea  Redux  must  of  course  not  be  judged 
by  the  reader's  acquiescence  in  its  sentiments.     But  let 


u.]  EARLY  LITERARY  WORK.  81 

any  one  read  the  following  passage  without  thinking  of 
the  treaty  of  Dover  and  the  closed  exchequer,  of  Madam 
Carwell's  twelve  thousand  a  year,  and  Lord  Russell's  scaf- 
fold, and  he  assuredly  will  not  fail  to  recognise  their  beauty : 

"  Methinks  I  see  those  crowds  on  Dover's  strand, 
Who  in  their  haste  to  welcome  you  to  land 
Choked  up  the  beach  with  their  still-growing  store, 
And  made  a  wilder  torrent  on  the  shore : 
While,  spurred  with  eager  thoughts  of  past  delight. 
Those  who  had  seen  you  court  a  second  sight, 
Preventing  still  your  steps,  and  making  haste 
To  meet  you  often  wheresoe'er  you  past. 
How  shall  I  speak  of  that  triumphant  day 
When  you  renewed  the  expiring  pomp  of  May  ? 
A  month  that  owns  an  interest  in  your  name ; 
You  and  the  flowers  are  its  peculiar  claim. 
That  star,  that  at  your  birth  shone  out  so  bright 
It  stained  the  duller  sun's  meridian  light. 
Did  once  again  its  potent  fires  renew. 
Guiding  our  eyes  to  find  and  worship  you." 

The  extraordinary  art  with  which  the  recurrences  of  the 
1/ou  and  j/our — in  the  circumstances  naturally  recited  with 
a  little  stress  of  the  voice — are  varied  in  position  so  as  to 
give  a  corresponding  variety  to  the  cadence  of  the  verse,  is 
perhaps  the  chief  thing  to  be  noted  here.  But  a  compari- 
son with  even  the  best  couplet  verse  of  the  time  will  show 
many  other  excellences  in  it.  I  am  aware  that  this  style 
of  minute  criticism  has  gone  out  of  fashion,  and  that  the 
variations  of  the  position  of  a  pronoun  have  terribly  little 
to  do  with  "  criticism  of  life ;"  but  as  I  am  dealing  with 
a  great  English  author  whose  main  distinction  is  to  have 
reformed  the  whole  formal  part  of  English  prose  and  Eng- 
glish  poetry,  I  must,  once  for  all,  take  leave  to  follow  the 
only  road  open  to  me  to  show  what  he  actually  did. 


32  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

The  other  smaller  couplet-poems  which  have  been  men- 
tioned are  less  important  than  Astrcea  Redux,  not  merely 
in  point  of  size,  but  because  they  are  later  in  date.  The 
piece  on  the  coronation,  however,  contains  lines  and  pas- 
sages equal  to  any  in  the  longer  poem,  and  it  shows  very 
happily  the  modified  form  of  conceit  which  Dryden, 
throughout  his  life,  was  fond  of  employing,  and  which, 
employed  with  his  judgment  and  taste,  fairly  escapes  the 
charges  usually  brought  against  "  Clevelandisms,"  while  it 
helps  to  give  to  the  heroic  the  colour  and  picturesqueness 
which  after  the  days  of  Pope  it  too  often  lacked.  Such 
is  the  fancy  about  the  postponement  of  the  ceremony — 

"  Had  greater  haste  these  sacred  rites  prepared, 
Some  guilty  months  had  in  our  triumph  shared. 
But  this  imtainted  year  is  all  your  own, 
Your  glories  may  without  our  crimes  be  shown," 

And  such  an  exceedingly  fine  passage  in  the  poem  to 
Clarendon,  which  is  one  of  the  most  finished  pieces  of 
Dryden's  early  versification — 

"  Our  setting  sun  from  his  declining  seat 
Shot  beams  of  kindness  on  you,  not  of  heat : 
And,  when  his  love  was  bounded  in  a  few 
That  were  unhappy  that  they  might  be  true, 
Made  you  the  favourite  of  his  last  sad  times ; 
That  is,  a  sufferer  in  his  subjects'  crimes : 
Thus  those  first  favours  you  received  were  sent, 
Like  Heaven's  rewards,  in  earthly  punishment. 
Yet  Fortune,  conscious  of  your  destiny, 
Even  then  took  care  to  lay  you  softly  by. 
And  wrapt  your  fate  among  her  precious  things. 
Kept  fresh  to  be  unfolded  with  your  King's. 
Shown  all  at  once,  you  dazzled  so  our  eyes 
As  new-bom  Pallas  did  the  god's  surprise ; 


n.]  EARLY  LITERARY  WORK.  33 

When,  springing  forth  from  Jove's  new-closing  wound, 
She  struck  the  warlike  spear  into  the  ground ; 
Which  sprouting  leaves  did  suddenly  enclose, 
And  peaceful  olives  shaded  as  they  rose." 

For  once  the  mania  for  simile  and  classical  allusion  has 
not  led  the  author  astray  here,  but  has  furnished  him  with 
a  very  happy  and  legitimate  ornament.  The  only  fault 
in  the  piece  is  the  use  of  "  did,"  which  Dryden  never 
wholly  discarded,  and  which  is  perhaps  occasionally  allow- 
able enough. 

The  remaining  poems  require  no  very  special  remark, 
though  all  contain  evidence  of  the  same  novel  and  un- 
matched mastery  over  the  couplet  and  its  cadence.  The 
author,  however,  was  giving  himself  more  and  more  to  the 
dramatic  studies  which  will  form  the  subject  of  the  next 
chapter,  and  to  the  prose  criticisms  which  almost  from  the 
first  he  associated  with  those  studies.  But  the  events  of 
the  year  1666  tempted  him  once  more  to  indulge  in  non- 
dramatic  work,  and  the  poem  of  Annus  Mirabilis  was  the 
result.  It  seems  to  have  been  written,  in  part  at  least,  at 
Lord  Berkshire's  seat  of  Charlton,  close  to  Malmesbury, 
and  was  prefaced  by  a  letter  to  Sir  Robert  Howard.  Dry- 
den appears  to  have  lived  at  Charlton  during  the  greater 
part  of  1665  and  1666,  the  plague  and  fire  years.  He 
had  been  driven  from  London,  not  merely  by  dread  of 
the  pestilence,  but  by  the  fact  that  his  ordinary  occupation 
was  gone,  owing  to  the  closing  of  the  play-houses,  and  he 
evidently  occupied  himself  at  Charlton  with  a  good  deal 
of  literary  work,  including  his  essay  on  dramatic  poetry, 
his  play  of  the  Maiden  Queen,  and  Annus  Mirabilis  itself. 
This  last  was  published  very  early  in  1667,  and  seems  to 
have  been  successful.  Pepys  bought  it  on  the  2nd  of  Feb- 
ruary, and  was  fortunately  able  to  like  it  better  than  he  did 


34  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

Hudibras.  "  A  very  good  poem,"  the  Clerk  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Navy  writes  it  down.  It  may  be  mentioned  in 
passing  that  during  this  same  stay  at  Charlton  Dryden's 
eldest  son  Charles  was  born. 

Annus  Mirabilis  consists  of  304  quatrains  on  the  Gonr 
dibert  model,  reasons  for  the  adoption  of  which  Dryden 
gives  (not  so  forcibly,  perhaps,  as  is  usual  with  him)  in  the 
before-mentioned  letter  to  his  brother-in-law.  He  speaks  of 
rhyme  generally  with  less  respect  than  he  was  soon  to  show, 
and  declares  that  he  has  adopted  the  quatrain  because  he 
judges  it  "  more  noble  and  full  of  dignity  "  than  any  other 
form  he  knows.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  he  was  still 
to  a  great  extent  under  the  influence  of  Davenant,  and  that 
Gondibert  as  yet  retained  suflBcient  prestige  to  make  its 
stanza  act  as  a  not  unfavourable  advertisement  of  poems 
written  in  it.  With  regard  to  the  nobility  and  dignity 
of  this  stanza,  it  may  safely  be  said  that  Annus  Mira- 
bilis itself,  the  best  poem  ever  written  therein,  killed  it  by 
exposing  its  faults.  It  is,  indeed,  at  least  when  the  rhymes 
of  the  stanzas  are  unconnected,  a  very  bad  metre  for  the 
purpose;  for  it  is  chargeable  with  more  than  the  disjoint- 
edness  of  the  couplet,  without  the  possibility  of  relief; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  quatrains  have  not,  like  the 
Spenserian  stave  or  the  ottava  rima,  sufficient  bulk  to  form 
units  in  themselves,  and  to  include  within  them  varieties 
of  harmony.  Despite  these  drawbacks,  however,  Dryden 
produced  a  very  fine  poem  in  Annus  Mirabilis,  though  I 
am  not  certain  that  even  its  best  passages  equal  those 
cited  from  the  couplet  pieces.  At  any  rate,  in  this  poem 
the  characteristics  of  the  master  in  what  may  be  called 
his  poetical  adolescence  are  displayed  to  the  fullest  extent. 
The  weight  and  variety  of  his  line,  his  abundance  of  illus- 
tration and  fancy,  his  happy  turns  of  separate  phrase,  and 


n.]  EARLY  LITERARY  WORK.  36 

his  singular  faculty  of  bending  to  poetical  uses  the  most 
refractory  names  and  things,  all  make  themselves  fully  felt 
here.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  still  an  undue  tendency 
to  conceit  and  exuberance  of  simile.     The  famous  lines — 

"  These  fight  like  husbands,  but  like  lovers  those ; 
These  fain  would  keep,  and  those  more  fain  enjoy ;" 

are  followed  in  the  next  stanza  by  a  most  indubitably 
"  metaphysical "  statement  that 

"  Some  preciously  by  shattered  porcelain  fall. 
And  some  by  aromatic  splinters  die." 

This  cannot  be  considered  the  happiest  possible  means  of 
informing  us  that  the  Dutch  fleet  was  laden  with  spices 
and  magots.  Such  puerile  fancies  are  certainly  unworthy 
of  a  poet  who  could  tell  how 

"  The  mighty  ghosts  of  our  great  Harrys  rose 
And  arm^d  Edwards  looked  with  anxious  eyes ;" 

and  who,  in  the  beautiful  simile  of  the  eagle,  has  equalled 
the  Elizabethans  at  their  own  weapons.  I  cannot  think, 
however,  admirable  as  the  poem  is  in  its  best  passages  (the 
description  of  the  fire,  for  instance),  that  it  is  technically 
the  equal  of  Astroea  Redux.  The  monotonous  recurrence 
of  the  same  identical  cadence  in  each  stanza — a  recurrence 
which  even  Dryden's  art  was  unable  to  prevent,  and  which 
can  only  be  prevented  by  some  such  interlacements  of 
rhymes  and  enjambements  of  sense  as  those  which  Mr. 
Swinburne  has  successfully  adopted  in  Laus  Veneris — in- 
jures the  best  passages.  The  best  of  all  is  undoubtedly 
the  following : 

"  In  this  deep  quiet,  from  what  source  unknown. 
Those  seeds  of  fire  their  fatal  birth  disclose  ; 
And  first  few  scattering  sparks  about  were  blown, 
Big  with  the  flames  that  to  our  ruin  rose. 


36  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

"  Then  in  some  close-pent  room  it  crept  along, 
And,  smouldering  as  it  went,  in  silence  fed ; 
Till  the  infant  monster,  with  devouring  strong, 
Walked  boldly  upright  with  exalted  head. 

"  Now,  like  some  rich  and  mighty  murderer. 

Too  great  for  prison  which  he  breaks  with  gold, 
Who  fresher  for  new  mischiefs  does  appear. 
And  dares  the  world  to  tax  him  with  the  old. 

"  So  'scapes  the  insulting  fire  his  narrow  jail, 
And  makes  small  outlets  into  open  air ; 
There  the  fierce  winds  his  tender  force  assail, 
And  beat  him  downward  to  his  first  repair. 

"  The  winds,  like  crafty  courtesans,  withheld 

His  flames  from  burning  but  to  blow  them  more; 
And,  every  fresh  attempt,  he  is  repelled 
With  faint  denials,  weaker  than  before. 

"  And  now,  no  longer  letted  of  his  prey, 
He  leaps  up  at  it  with  enraged  desire, 
O'erlooks  the  neighbours  with  a  wide  survey. 
And  nods  at  every  house  his  threatening  fire. 

"  The  ghosts  of  traitors  from  the  Bridge  descend. 
With  bold  fanatic  spectres  to  rejoice  ; 
About  the  fire  into  a  dance  they  bend 

And  sing  their  sabbath  notes  with  feeble  voice." 

The  last  stanza,  indeed,  contains  a  fine  image  finely  ex- 
pressed, but  I  cannot  but  be  glad  that  Dryden  tried  no 
more  experiments  with  the  recalcitrant  quatrain. 

Annus  Mirabilis  closes  the  series  of  early  poems,  and 
for  fourteen  years  from  the  date  of  its  publication  Dryden 
was  known,  with  insignificant  exceptions,  as  a  dramatic 
writer  only.  But  his  efforts  in  poetry  proper,  though  they 
had  not  as  yet  resulted  in  any  masterpiece,  had,  as  I  have 


n.]  EARLY  LITERARY  WORK.  Z1 

endeavoured  to  point  out,  amply  entitled  him  to  the  posi- 
tion of  a  great  and  original  master  of  the  formal  part  of 
poetry,  if  not  of  a  poet  who  had  distinctly  found  his  way. 
He  had  carried  out  a  conception  of  the  couplet  which  was 
almost  entirely  new,  having  been  anticipated  only  by  some 
isolated  and  ill  -  sustained  efforts.  He  had  manifested  an 
equal  originality  in  the  turn  of  his  phrase,  an  extraordina- 
ry command  of  poetic  imagery,  and,  above  all,  a  faculty  of 
handling  by  no  means  promising  subjects  in  an  indispu- 
tably poetical  manner.  Circumstances  which  I  shall  now 
proceed  to  describe  called  him  away  from  the  practice  of 
pure  poetry,  leaving  to  him,  however,  a  reputation,  amply 
deserved  and  acknowledged  even  by  his  enemies,  of  pos- 
sessing unmatched  skill  in  versification.  Nor  were  the 
studies  upon  which  he  now  entered  wholly  alien  to  his 
proper  function,  though  they  were  in  some  sort  a  bye- 
work.  They  strengthened  his  command  over  the  lan- 
guage, increased  his  skill  in  verse,  and,  above  all,  tended 
by  degrees  to  reduce  and  purify  what  was  corrupt  in  his 
phraseology  and  system  of  ornamentation.  Fourteen  years 
of  dramatic  practice  did  more  than  turn  out  some  admira- 
ble scenes  and  some  even  more  admirable  criticism.  They 
acted  as  a  filtering  reservoir  for  his  poetical  powers,  so 
that  the  stream  which,  when  it  ran  into  them,  was  the 
turbid  and  rubbish  -  laden  current  of  Annus  Mirabilis, 
flowed  out  as  impetuous,  as  strong,  but  clear  and  with- 
out base  admixture,  in  the  splendid  verse  of  Absalom  and 
Achitophel. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PERIOD    OF    DRAMATIC    ACTIVITY. 

There  are  not  many  portions  of  English  literature  which 
have  heen  treated  with  greater  severity  by  critics  than  the 
Restoration  drama,  and  of  the  Restoration  dramatists  few 
have  met  with  less  favour,  in  proportion  to  their  general 
literary  eminence,  than  Dryden.  Of  his  comedies,  in  par- 
ticular, few  have  been  found  to  say  a  good  word.  His 
sturdiest  champion,  Scott,  dismisses  them  as  "heavy;"  Haz- 
litt,  a  defender  of  the  Restoration  comedy  in  general,  finds 
little  in  them  but  "  ribaldry  and  extravagance ;"  and  1  have 
lately  seen  them  spoken  of  with  a  shudder  as  *'  horrible." 
The  tragedies  have  fared  better,  but  not  much  better;  and 
thus  the  remarkable  spectacle  is  presented  of  a  general 
condemnation,  varied  only  by  the  faintest  praise,  of  the 
work  to  which  an  admitted  master  of  English  devoted, 
almost  exclusively,  twenty  years  of  the  flower  of  his  man- 
hood. So  complete  is  the  oblivion  into  which  these  dramas 
have  fallen,  that  it  has  buried  in  its  folds  the  always  charm- 
ing and  sometimes  exquisite  songs  which  they  contain. 
Except  in  Congreve's  two  editions,  and  in  the  bulky  edi- 
tion of  Scott,  Dryden's  theatre  is  unattainable,  and  thus  the 
majority  of  readers  have  but  little  opportunity  of  correct- 
ing, from  individual  study,  the  unfavourable  impressions 
derived  from  the  verdicts  of  the  critics.     For  myself,  I  am 


CHAP,  m.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  39 

very  far  from  considering  Dryden's  dramatic  work  as  on  a 
level  with  his  purely  poetical  work.  But,  as  nearly  always 
happens,  and  as  happened,  by  a  curious  coincidence,  in  the 
case  of  his  editor,  the  fact  that  he  did  something  else  much 
better  has  obscured  the  fact  that  he  did  this  thing  in  not 
a  few  instances  very  well.  Scott's  poems  as  poems  are  far 
inferior  to  his  novels  as  novels ;  Dryden's  plays  are  far  in- 
ferior as  plays  to  his  satires  and  bis  fables  as  poems.  But 
both  the  poems  of  Scott  and  the  plays  of  Dryden  are  a 
great  deal  better  than  the  average  critic  admits. 

That  dramatic  work  went  somewhat  against  the  grain 
with  Dryden,  is  frequently  asserted  on  his  own  authority, 
and  is  perhaps  true.  He  began  it,  however,  tolerably  early, 
and  had  finished  at  least  the  scheme  of  a  play  (on  a  sub- 
ject which  he  afterwards  resumed)  shortly  after  the  Resto- 
ration. As  soon  as  that  event  happened,  a  double  in- 
centive to  play-writing  began  to  work  upon  him.  It  was 
much  the  most  fashionable  of  literary  occupations,  and  also 
much  the  most  lucrative.  Dryden  was  certainly  not  indif- 
ferent to  fame,  and,  though  he  was  by  no  means  a  covetous 
man,  he  seems  to  have  possessed  at  all  times  the  perfect 
readiness  to  spend  whatever  could  be  honestly  got  which 
frequently  distinguishes  men  of  letters.  He  set  to  work 
accordingly,  and  produced  in  1663  the  Wild  Gallant.  We 
do  not  possess  this  play  in  the  form  in  which  it  was  first 
acted  and  damned.  Afterwards  Lady  Castlemaine  gave  it 
her  protection;  the  author  added  certain  attractions  ac- 
cording to  the  taste  of  the  time,  and  it  was  both  acted  and 
published.  It  certainly  cannot  be  said  to  be  a  great  suc- 
cess even  as  it  is.  Dryden  had,  like  most  of  his  fellows, 
attempted  the  Comedy  of  Humours,  as  it  was  called  at 
the  time,  and  as  it  continued  to  be,  and  to  be  called,  till 
the  more  polished  comedy  of  manners,  or  artificial  comedy, 


40  DRTDEN.  [chap. 

succeeded  it,  owing  to  the  success  of  Wycherley,  and  still 
more  of  Congreve.  The  number  of  comedies  of  this  kind 
written  after  1620  is  very  large,  while  the  fantastic  and 
poetical  comedy  of  which  Shakspeare  and  Fletcher  had  al- 
most alone  the  secret  had  almost  entirely  died  out.  The 
merit  of  the  Comedy  of  Humours  is  the  observation  of 
actual  life  which  it  requires  in  order  to  be  done  well,  and 
the  consequent  fidelity  with  which  it  holds  up  the  muses' 
looking-glass  (to  use  the  title  of  one  of  Randolph's  plays) 
to  nature.  Its  defects  are  its  proneness  to  descend  into 
farce,  and  the  temptation  which  it  gives  to  the  writer  to 
aim  rather  at  mere  fragmentary  and  sketchy  delineations 
than  at  finished  composition.  At  the  Restoration  this 
school  of  drama  was  vigorously  enough  represented  by 
Davenant  himself,  by  Sir  Aston  Cokain,  and  by  Wilson,  a 
writer  of  great  merit  who  rather  unaccountably  abandoned 
the  stage  very  soon,  while  in  a  year  or  two  Shad  well,  the 
actor  Lacy,  and  several  others  were  to  take  it  up  and  carry 
it  on.  It  had  frequently  been  combined  with  the  embroil- 
ed and  complicated  plots  of  the  Spanish  comedy  of  intrigue, 
the  adapters  usually  allowing  these  plots  to  conduct  them- 
selves much  more  irregularly  than  was  the  case  in  the 
originals,  while  the  deficiencies  were  made  up,  or  supposed 
to  be  made  up,  by  a  liberal  allowance  of  "  humours."  The 
danger  of  this  sort  of  work  was  perhaps  never  better  illus- 
trated than  by  Shadwell,  when  he  boasted  in  one  of  his 
prefaces  that  "  four  of  the  humours  were  entirely  new," 
and  appeared  to  consider  this  a  suflScient  claim  to  respect- 
ful reception.  Dryden  in  his  first  play  fell  to  the  fullest 
extent  into  the  blunder  of  this  combined  Spanish-English 
style,  though  on  no  subsequent  occasion  did  he  repeat 
the  mistake.  By  degrees  the  example  and  influence  of 
Moli^re  sent  complicated  plots  and  "  humours  "  alike  out 


m.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  41 

of  fashion,  though  the  national  taste  and  temperament 
were  too  strongly  in  favour  of  the  latter  to  allow  them  to 
be  totally  banished.  In  our  very  best  plays  of  the  so-call- 
ed artificial  style,  such  as  Love  for  Love,  and  the  master- 
pieces of  Sheridan,  character  sketches  to  which  Ben  Jonson 
himself  would  certainly  not  refuse  the  title  of  humours 
appear,  and  contribute  a  large  portion  of  the  interest. 
Dryden,  however,  was  not  likely  to  anticipate  this  better 
time,  or  even  to  distinguish  himself  in  the  older  form  of 
the  humour-comedy.  He  had  little  aptitude  for  the  odd 
and  quaint,  nor  had  he  any  faculty  of  devising  or  picking 
up  strokes  of  extravagance,  such  as  those  which  his  enemy 
Shadwell  could  command,  though  he  could  make  no  very 
good  use  of  them.  The  humours  of  Trice  and  Bibber 
and  Lord  Nonsuch  in  the  Wild  Gallant  are  forced  and 
too  often  feeble,  though  there  are  flashes  here  and  there, 
especially  in  the  part  of  Sir  Timorous,  a  weakling  of  the 
tribe  of  Aguecheek;  but  in  this  first  attempt,  the  one 
situation  and  the  one  pair  of  characters  which  Dryden 
was  to  treat  with  tolerable  success  are  already  faintly 
sketched.  In  Constance  and  Loveby,  the  pair  of  light- 
hearted  lovers  who  carry  on  a  flirtation  without  too  much 
modesty  certainly,  and  with  a  remarkable  absence  of  re- 
finement, but  at  the  same  time  with  some  genuine  affec- 
tion for  one  another,  and  in  a  hearty,  natural  manner, 
make  their  first  appearance.  It  is  to  be  noted  in  Dryden's 
favour  that  these  lovers  of  his  are  for  the  most  part  free 
from  the  charge  of  brutal  heartlessness  and  cruelty,  which 
has  been  justly  brought  against  those  of  Etherege,  of 
Wycherley,  and,  at  least  in  the  case  of  the  Old  Bachelor, 
of  Congreve.  The  men  are  rakes,  and  rather  vulgar  rakes, 
but  they  are  nothing  worse.  The  women  have  too  many 
of  the  characteristics  of  Charles  the  Second's  maids  of 
D    3  * 


42  DRYDEN.  [CHAP. 

honour ;  but  they  have  at  the  same  time  a  certain  health- 
iness and  sweetness  of  the  older  days,  which  bring  them, 
if  not  close  to  Rosalind  and  Beatrice,  at  any  rate  pretty 
near  to  Fletcher's  heroines,  such  as  Dorothea  and  Mary. 
Still,  the  Wild  Gallant  can  by  no  possibility  be  called  a 
good  play.  It  was  followed  at  no  long  interval  by  the 
Rival  Ladies,  a  tragicomedy,  which  is  chiefly  remarkable 
for  containing  some  heroic  scenes  in  rhyme,  for  imitating 
closely  the  tangled  and  improbable  plot  of  its  Spanish 
original,  for  being  tolerably  decent,  and  I  fear  it  must 
be  added,  for  being  intolerably  dull.  The  third  venture 
was  in  every  way  more  important.  The  Indian  Emper- 
or (1665)  was  Dryden's  first  original  play,  his  first  heroic 
play,  and  indirectly  formed  part  of  a  curious  literary  dis- 
pute, one  of  many  in  which  he  was  engaged,  but  which 
in  this  case  proved  fertile  in  critical  studies  of  his  best 
brand.  Sir  Robert  Howard,  Dryden's  brother-in-law,  had, 
with  the  assistance  of  Dry  den  himself,  produced  a  play 
called  the  Indian  Queen,  and  to  this  the  Indian  Emper- 
or was  nominally  a  sequel.  But  as  Dryden  remarks,  with 
a  quaintness  which  may  or  may  not  be  satirical,  the  con- 
clusion of  the  Indian  Queen  "left  but  little  matter  to 
build  upon,  there  remaining  but  two  of  the  considerable 
characters  alive."  The  good  Sir  Robert  had  indeed  heap- 
ed the  stage  with  dead  in  his  last  act  in  a  manner  which 
must  have  confirmed  any  French  critic  who  saw  or  read 
the  play  in  his  belief  of  the  bloodthirstiness  of  the  Eng- 
lish drama.  The  field  was  thus  completely  clear,  and 
Di*yden,  retaining  only  Montezuma  as  his  hero,  used  his 
own  fancy  and  invention  without  restraint  in  constructing 
the  plot  and  arranging  the  characters.  The  play  was  ex- 
tremely popular,  and  it  divides  with  Tyrannic  Love  and  the 
Conquest  of  Granada  the  merit  of  being  the  best  of  all 


ni]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  43 

English  heroic  plays.  The  origin  of  that  singular  growth 
has  been  already  given,  and  there  is  no  need  to  repeat  the 
story,  while  the  Conquest  of  Granada  is  so  much  more  the 
model  play  of  the  style,  that  anything  like  an  analysis  of  a 
heroic  play  had  better  be  reserved  for  this.  The  Indian 
Emperor  was  followed,  in  1667,  by  the  Maiden  Queen,  a 
tragicomedy.  The  tragic  or  heroic  part  is  very  inferior 
to  its  predecessor,  but  the  comic  part  has  merits  which  are 
by  no  means  inconsiderable.  Celadon  and  Florimel  are 
the  first  finished  specimens  of  that  pair  of  practitioners  of 
light  o'  love  flirtation  which  was  Dryden's  sole  contribu- 
tion of  any  value  to  the  comic  stage.  Charles  gave  the 
play  particular  commendation,  and  called  it  "  his  play,"  as 
Dryden  takes  care  to  tell  us.  Still,  in  the  same  year  came 
Sir  Martin  Marall,  Dryden's  second  pure  comedy.  But 
it  is  in  no  sense  an  original  play,  and  Dryden  was  not  even 
the  original  adapter.  The  Duke  of  Newcastle,  famous 
equally  for  his  own  gallantry  in  the  civil  war,  and  for  the 
oddities  of  his  second  duchess,  Margaret  Lucas,  translated 
VEtourdi,  and  gave  it  to  Dryden,  who  perhaps  combined 
with  it  some  things  taken  from  other  French  plays,  added 
not  a  little  of  his  own,  and  had  it  acted.  It  was  for 
those  days  exceedingly  successful,  running  more  than  thirty 
nights  at  its  first  appearance.  It  is  very  coarse  in  parts, 
but  amusing  enough.  The  English  blunderer  is  a  much 
more  contemptible  person  than  his  French  original.  He 
is  punished  instead  of  being  rewarded,  and  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  broad  farce  brought  in.  Dryden  was  about  this 
time  frequently  engaged  in  this  doubtful  sort  of  collabo- 
ration, and  the  very  next  play  which  he  produced,  also  a 
result  of  it,  has  done  his  reputation  more  harm  than  any 
other.  This  was  the  disgusting  burlesque  of  the  Tempest, 
which,  happily,  there  is  much  reason  for  thinking  belongs 


44  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

almost  wholly  to  Davenant.  Besides  degrading  in  every 
way  the  poetical  merit  of  the  poem,  Sir  William,  from 
whom  better  things  might  have  been  expected,  got  into 
his  head  what  Dryden  amiably  calls  the  "  excellent  con- 
trivance "  of  giving  Miranda  a  sister,  and  inventing  a  boy 
(Hippolito)  who  has  never  seen  a  woman.  The  excellent 
contriv^ance  gives  rise  to  a  good  deal  of  extremely  charac- 
teristic wit.  But  here,  too,  there  is  little  reason  for  giving 
Dryden  credit  or  discredit  for  anything  more  than  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  arrangement  and  revision.  Hb  next  ap- 
pearance, in  1668,  with  the  Mock  Astrologer  was  a  more 
independent  one.  He  was,  indeed,  as  was  very  usual  with 
him,  indebted  to  others  for  the  main  points  of  his  play, 
which  comes  partly  from  Thomas  Comeille's  Feint  Astro- 
logue,  partly  from  the  Depit  Amoureux.  But  the  play, 
with  the  usual  reservations,  may  be  better  spoken  of  than 
any  of  Dryden's  comedies,  except  Marriage  a  la  Mode  and 
Amphitryon.  Wildblood  and  Jacintha,  who  play  the  parts 
of  Celadon  and  Florimel  in  the  Maiden  Queen,  are  a  very 
lively  pair.  Much  of  the  dialogue  is  smart,  and  the  inci- 
dents are  stirring,  while  the  play  contains  no  less  than  four 
of  the  admirable  songs  which  Dryden  now  began  to  lavish 
on  his  audiences.  In  the  same  year,  or  perhaps  in  1669, 
appeared  the  play  of  Tyrannic  Love,  or  the  Royal  Martyr, 
a  compound  of  exquisite  beauties  and  absurdities  of  the 
most  frantic  description.  The  part  of  St.  Catherine  (very 
inappropriately  allotted  to  Mrs.  Eleanor  Gwyn)  is  beauti- 
ful throughout,  and  that  of  Maximin  is  quite  captivating 
in  its  outrageousness.  The  Astral  spirits  who  appear  gave 
occasion  for  some  terrible  parody  in  the  Rehearsal,  but 
their  verses  are  in  themselves  rather  attractive.  An  ac- 
count of  the  final  scene  of  the  play  will  perhaps  show  bet- 
ter than  anything  else  the  rant  and  folly  in  which  authors 


m.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  46 

indulged,  and  which  audiences  applauded  in  these  plays. 
The  Emperor  Maximin  is  dissatisfied  with  the  conduct  of 
the  upper  powers  in  reference  to  his  domestic  peace.  He 
thus  expresses  his  dissatisfaction : 

"  What  had  the  gods  to  do  with  me  or  mine  ? 
Did  I  molest  your  heaven  ? 
Wliy  should  you  then  make  Maximin  your  foe, 
Who  paid  you  tribute,  which  he  need  not  do  ? 
Your  altars  I  with  smoke  of  rams  did  crown, 
For  which  you  leaned  your  hungry  nostrils  down. 
All  daily  gaping  for  my  incense  there. 
More  than  your  sun  could  draw  you  in  a  year. 
And  you  for  this  these  plagues  have  on  me  sent. 
But,  by  the  gods  (by  Maximin,  I  meant). 
Henceforth  I  and  my  world 
Hostility  with  you  and  yours  declare. 
Look  to  it,  gods !  for  you  the  aggressors  are. 
Keep  you  your  rain  and  sunshine  in  your  skies. 
And  I'll  keep  back  my  flame  and  sacrifice. 
Your  trade  of  heaven  shall  soon  be  at  a  stand. 
And  all  your  goods  lie  dead  upon  your  hand." 

Thereupon  an  aggrieved  and  possibly  shocked  follower, 
of  the  name  of  Placidius,  stabs  him,  but  the  Emperor  wrests 
the  dagger  from  him  and  returns  the  blow.  Then  follows 
this  stage  direction :  "  Placidius  falls,  and  the  Emperor 
staggers  after  him  and  sits  down  upon  him."  From  this 
singular  throne  his  guards  offer  to  assist  him.  But  he  de- 
clines help,  and,  having  risen  once,  sits  down  again  upon 
Placidius,  who,  despite  the  stab  and  the  weight  of  the 
Emperor,  is  able  to  address  an  irreproachable  decasyllabic 
couplet  to  the  audience.  Thereupon  Maximin  again  stabs 
the  person  upon  whom  he  is  sitting,  and  they  both  expire 
as  follows : 


46  DRYDEN.  [char 

"  Pl(u.  Oh !  I  am  gone.     Max.  And  after  thee  I  go, 
Revenging  still  and  following  ev'n  to  the  other  world  my  blow, 
And  shoving  back  this  earth  on  which  I  sit, 
I'll  mount  and  scatter  all  the  gods  I  hit." 

\^Stabs  him  again.} 

Tyrannic  Love  was  followed  by  the  two  parts  of  Al- 
manzor  and  Almahide,  or  the  Conquest  of  Granada,  the 
triumph  and  at  the  same  time  the  reductio  ad  absurdum 
of  the  style.  I  cannot  do  better  than  give  a  full  argument 
of  this  famous  production,  which  nobody  now  reads,  and 
which  is  full  of  lines  that  everybody  habitually  quotes. 

The  kingdom  of  Granada  tinder  its  last  monarch,  Boab- 
delin,  is  divided  by  the  quari-els  of  factions,  or  rather  fam- 
ilies— the  Abencerrages  and  the  Zegrys.  At  a  festival 
held  in  the  capital  this  dissension  breaks  out.  A  stranger 
interferes  on  what  appears  to  be  the  weaker  side,  and  kills 
a  prominent  leader  of  the  opposite  party,  altogether  dis- 
regarding the  king's  injunctions  to  desist.  He  is  seized 
by  the  guards  and  ordered  for  execution,  but  is  then  dis- 
covered to  be  Almanzor,  a  valiant  person  lately  arrived 
from  Africa,  who  has  rendered  valuable  assistance  to  the 
Moors  in  their  combat  with  the  Spaniards.  The  king 
thereupon  apologizes,  and  Almanzor  addresses  much  out- 
rageous language  to  the  factions.  This  is  successful,  and 
harmony  is  apparently  restored.  Then  there  enters  the 
Duke  of  Arcos,  a  Spanish  envoy,  who  propounds  hard  con- 
ditions ;  but  Almanzor  remarks  that  "  the  Moors  have 
Heaven  and  me,"  and  the  duke  retires.  Almahide,  the 
king's  betrothed,  sends  a  messenger  to  invite  him  to  a 
dance ;  but  Almanzor  insists  upon  a  sally  first,  and  the 
first  act  ends  with  the  acceptance  of  this  order  of  amuse- 
ment. The  second  opens  with  the  triumphant  return  of 
the  Moors,  the  ever-victorious  Almanzor  having  captured 


in.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  47 

the  Duke  of  Arcos.  Then  is  introduced  the  first  female 
character  of  importance,  Lyndaraxa,  sister  of  Zulema,  the 
Zegry  chief,  and  representative  throughout  the  drama  of 
the  less  amiable  qualities  of  womankind.  Abdalla,  the 
king's  brother,  makes  love  to  her,  and  she  very  plainly 
tells  him  that  if  he  were  king  she  might  have  something 
to  say  to  him.  Zulema's  factiousness  strongly  seconds 
his  sister's  ambition  and  her  jealousy  of  Almahide,  and 
the  act  ends  by  the  formation  of  a  conspiracy  against 
Boabdelin,  the  conspirators  resolving  to  attach  the  invin- 
cible Almanzor  to  their  side.  The  third  act  borrows  its 
opening  from  the  incident  of  Hotspur's  wrath,  Almanzor 
being  provoked  with  Boabdelin  for  the  same  cause  as 
Harry  Percy  with  Henry  IV,  Thus  he  is  disposed  to  join 
Abdalla,  while  Abdelmelech,  the  chief  of  the  Abencerrages, 
is  introduced  in  a  scene  full  of  "  sighs  and  flames,"  as  the 
prince's  rival  for  the  hand  of  Lyndaraxa.  The  promised 
dance  takes  place  with  one  of  Dryden's  delightful,  and, 
alas!  scarcely  ever  wholly  quotable  lyrics.  The  first  two 
stanzas  may  however  be  given  : 

"  Beneath  a  myrtle's  shade, 
Which  love  for  none  but  happy  lovers  made, 
I  slept,  and  straight  my  love  before  me  brought 
Phyllis,  the  object  of  my  waking  thought. 
Undressed  she  came  my  flame  to  meet, 
While  love  strewed  flowers  beneath  her  feet, 
Flowers  which,  so  pressed  by  her,  became  more  sweet 

"  From  the  bright  vision's  head 
A  careless  veil  of  lawn  was  loosely  shed. 
From  her  white  temples  fell  her  shaded  hair, 
Like  cloudy  sunshine,  not  too  brown  nor  fair. 
Her  hands,  her  lips,  did  love  inspire, 
Her  every  grace  my  heart  did  fire. 
But  most  her  eyes,  which  languished  with  desire." 


48  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  the  quotation  cannot  be  con- 
tinued ;  but  it  cannot,  though  the  verse  is  more  artfully 
beautiful  even  than  here. 

While,  however,  the  king  and  his  court  are  listening 
and  looking,  mischief  is  brewing.  Almanzor,  Abdalla,  and 
the  Zegrys  are  in  arms.  The  king  is  driven  in ;  Almahide 
is  captured.  Then  a  scene  takes  place  between  Almanzor 
and  Almahide  in  the  full  spirit  of  the  style.  Almanzor 
sues  for  Almahide  as  a  prisoner  that  he  may  set  her  at 
liberty ;  but  a  rival  appears  in  the  powerful  Zulema.  Al- 
manzor is  disobliged  by  Abdalla,  and  at  once  makes  his 
way  to  the  citadel,  whither  Boabdelin  has  fled,  and  offers 
him  his  services.  At  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  act  they 
are  of  course  accepted  with  joy,  and  equally  of  course  ef- 
fectual. Almanzor  renews  his  suit,  but  Almahide  refers 
him  to  her  father.  The  fifth  act  is  still  fuller  of  extrava- 
gances. Lyndaraxa  holds  a  fort  which  has  been  commit- 
ted to  her  against  both  parties,  and  they  discourse  with 
her  from  without  the  walls.  The  unlucky  Almanzor  pre- 
fers his  suit  to  the  king  and  to  Almahide's  father;  has 
recourse  to  violence  on  being  refused,  and  is  overpowered 
— for  a  wonder — and  bound.  His  life  is,  however,  spared, 
and  after  a  parting  scene  with  Almahide  he  withdraws 
from  the  city. 

The  second  part  opens  in  the  Spanish  camp,  but  soon 
shifts  to  Granada,  where  the  unhappy  Boabdelin  has  to 
face  the  mutinies  provoked  by  the  expulsion  of  Almanzor. 
The  king  has  to  stoop  to  entreat  Almahide,  now  his 
queen,  to  use  her  influence  with  her  lover  to  come  back. 
An  act  of  fine  confused  fighting  follows,  in  which  Lynda- 
raxa's  castle  is  stormed,  the  stormers  in  their  turn  driven 
out  by  the  Duke  of  Arcos  and  Abdalla,  who  has  joined  the 
Spaniards,  and  a  general  imbroglio  created.     But  Almanzor 


ni.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  49 

obeys  Almahide's  summons,  with  the  result  of  more  sighs 
and  flames.  The  conduct  of  Almahide  is  unexceptiona- 
ble ;  but  Boabdelin's  jealousy  is  inevitably  aroused,  and 
this  in  its  turn  mortally  offends  the  queen,  which  again 
offends  Almanzor.  More  inexplicable  embroilment  follows, 
and  Lyndaraxa  tries  her  charms  vainly  on  the  champion. 
The  war  once  more  centres  round  the  Albayzin,  Lynda- 
raxa's  sometime  fortress,  and  it  is  not  flippant  to  say  that 
every  one  fights  with  every  one  else ;  after  which  the  hero 
sees  the  ghost  of  his  mother,  and  addresses  it  more  suo. 
Yet  another  love-scene  follows,  and  then  Zulema,  who  has 
not  forgotten  his  passion  for  Almahide,  brings  a  false  ac- 
cusation against  her,  the  assumed  partner  of  her  guilt  be- 
ing, however,  not  Almanzor,  but  Abdelmelech.  This  leaves 
the  hero  free  to  undertake  the  wager  of  battle  for  his  mis- 
tress, though  he  is  distracted  with  jealous  fear  that  Zule- 
ma's  tale  is  true.  The  result  of  the  ordeal  is  a  foregone 
conclusion ;  but  Almahide,  though  her  innocence  is  proved, 
is  too  angry  with  her  husband  for  doubting  her  to  forgive 
him,  and  solemnly  forswears  his  society.  She  and  Alman- 
zor meet  once  more,  and  by  this  time  even  the  convention- 
alities of  the  heroic  play  allow  him  to  kiss  her  hand.  The 
king  is  on  the  watch,  and  breaks  in  with  fresh  accusations ; 
but  the  Spaniards  at  the  gates  cut  short  the  discussion,  and 
(at  last)  the  embroilment  and  suffering  of  true  love.  The 
catastrophe  is  arrived  at  in  the  most  approved  manner. 
Boabdelin  dies  fighting ;  Lyndaraxa,  who  has  given  trai- 
torous help  with  her  Zegrys,  is  proclaimed  queen  by  Fer- 
dinand, but  almost  immediately  stabbed  by  Abdelmelech. 
Almanzor  turns  out  to  be  the  long-lost  son  of  the  Duke 
of  Arcos ;  and  Almahide,  encouraged  by  Queen  Isabella, 
owns  that  when  her  year  of  widowhood  is  up  she  may 
possibly  be  induced  to  crown  his  flames. 
3* 


60  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

Such  is  the  barest  outline  of  this  famous  play,  and  I  fear 
that  as  it  is  it  is  too  long,  though  much  has  been  omit- 
ted, including  the  whole  of  a  pleasing  underplot  of  love 
between  two  very  creditable  lovers,  Osmyn  and  Benzayda. 
Its  preposterous  "  revolutions  and  discoveries,"  the  wild 
bombast  of  Almanzor  and  others,  the  apparently  purpose- 
less embroilment  of  the  action  in  ever -new  turns  and 
twists  are  absurd  enough ;  but  there  is  a  kind  of  generous 
and  noble  spirit  animating  it  which  could  not  fail  to  catch 
an  audience  blinded  by  fashion  to  its  absurdities.  There 
is  a  skilful  sequence  even  in  the  most  preposterous  events, 
which  must  have  kept  up  the  interest  unfalteringly ;  and 
all  over  the  dialogue  are  squandered  and  lavished  flowers 
of  splendid  verse.  Many  of  its  separate  lines  are,  as  has 
been  said,  constantly  quoted  without  the  least  idea  on  the 
quoter's  part  of  their  origin,  and  many  more  are  quotable. 
Everybody,  for  instance,  knows  the  vigorous  couplet : 

"Forgiveness  to  the  injured  does  belong, 
But  they  ne'er  pardon  who  have  done  the  wrong ;" 

but  everybody  does  not  know  the  preceding  couplet,  which 
is,  perhaps,  better  still : 

*'  A  blush  remains  in  a  forgiven  face ; 
It  wears  the  silent  tokens  of  disgrace." 

Almanzor's  tribute  to  Lyndaraxa's  beauty,  at  the  same 
time  that  he  rejects  her  advances,  is  in  little,  perhaps,  as 
good  an  instance  as  could  be  given  of  the  merits  of  the 
poetry  and  of  the  stamp  of  its  spirit,  and  with  this  T  must 
be  content : 

"  Fair  though  you  are 
As  summer  mornings,  and  your  eyes  more  bright 
Than  stars  that  twinkle  on  a  winter's  night ; 


in.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  51 

Though  yoii  have  eloquence  to  warm  and  move 
Cold  age  and  fasting  hermits  into  love  ; 
Though  Almahide  with  scorn  rewards  my  care, 
Yet  than  to  change  'tis  nobler  to  despair. 
My  love's  ray  soul,  and  that  from  fate  is  free — 
Tis  that  unchanged  and  deathless  part  of  me." 

The  audience  that  cheered  this  was  not  wholly  vile. 

The  Conquest  of  Granada  appeared  in  1670,  and  in 
the  following  year  the  famous  Rehearsal  was  brought  out 
at  the  King's  Theatre.  The  importance  of  this  event  in 
Dryden's  life  is  considerable,  but  it  has  been  somewhat 
exaggerated.  In  the  first  place,  the  satire,  keen  as  much 
of  it  is,  is  only  half  directed  against  himself.  The  origi- 
nal Bayes  was  beyond  all  doubt  Davenant,  to  whom  some 
of  the  jokes  directly  apply,  while  they  have  no  reference 
to  Dryden.  In  the  second  place,  the  examples  of  heroic 
plays  selected  for  parody  and  ridicule  are  by  no  means  ex- 
clusively drawn  from  Dryden's  theatre.  His  brothers-in- 
law,  Edward  and  Robert  Howard,  and  others,  figure  be- 
side him,  and  the  central  character  is,  on  the  whole,  as 
composite  as  might  be  expected  from  the  number  of  au- 
thors whose  plays  are  satirized.  Although  fathered  by 
Buckingham,  it  seems  likely  that  not  much  of  the  play  is 
actually  his.  His  coadjutors  are  said  to  have  been  Butler, 
Sprat,  and  Martin  Clifford,  Master  of  the  Charterhouse,  au- 
thor of  some  singularly  ill-tempered  if  not  very  pointed 
remarks  on  Dryden's  plays,  which  were  not  published  till 
long  afterwards.  Butler's  hand  is,  indeed,  traceable  in 
many  of  the  parodies  of  heroic  diction,  none  of  which  are 
so  good  as  his  acknowledged  "  Dialogue  of  Cat  and  Puss." 
The  wit  and,  for  the  most  part,  the  justice  of  the  satire  are 
indisputable ;  and  if  it  be  true,  as  I  am  told,  that  the  Re- 
hearsal does  not  now  make  a  good  acting  play,  the  fact 


62  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

does  not  bear  favourable  testimony  to  the  culture  and  re- 
ceptive powers  of  modern  audiences.  But  there  were  many 
reasons  why  Dryden  should  take  the  satire  very  coolly,  as 
in  fact  he  did.  As  he  says,  with  his  customary  proud  hu- 
mility, "  his  betters  were  much  more  concerned  than  him- 
self ;"  and  it  seems  highly  probable  that  Buckingham's  co- 
adjutors, confiding  in  his  good  nature  or  his  inability  to 
detect  the  liberty,  had  actually  introduced  not  a  few  traits 
of  his  own  into  this  singularly  composite  portrait.  In  the 
second  place,  the  farce  was  what  would  be  now  called  an 
advertisement,  and  a  very  good  one.  Nothing  can  be  a 
greater  mistake  than  to  say  or  to  think  that  the  Rehearsal 
killed  heroic  plays.  It  did  nothing  of  the  kind,  Dryden 
himself  going  on  writing  them  for  some  years  until  his 
own  fancy  made  him  cease,  and  others  continuing  still 
longer.  There  is  a  play  of  Crowne's,  Caligula,  in  which 
many  of  the  scenes  are  rhymed,  dating  as  late  as  1698, 
and  the  general  character  of  the  heroic  play,  if  not  the 
rhymed  form,  continued  almost  unaltered.  Certainly  Dry- 
den's  equanimity  was  very  little  disturbed.  Buckingham 
he  paid  off  in  kind  long  afterwards,  and  his  Grace  im- 
mediately proceeded,  by  his  answer,  to  show  how  little  he 
can  have  had  to  do  with  the  Rehearsal.  To  Sprat  and 
Clifford  no  allusions  that  I  know  of  are  to  be  found  in 
his  writings.  As  for  Butler,  an  honourable  mention  in  a 
letter  to  Lawrence  Hyde  shows  how  little  acrimony  he  felt 
towards  him.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  of  Dryden  that  he 
was  at  no  time  touchy  about  personal  attacks.  It  was 
only  when,  as  Shadwell  subsequently  did,  the  assailants  be- 
came outrageous  in  their  abuse,  and  outstepped  the  bounds 
of  fair  literary  warfare,  or  when,  as  in  Blackmore's  case 
there  was  some  singular  ineptitude  in  the  fashion  of  the 
attack,  that  he  condescended  to  reply. 


nt]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  63 

It  is  all  the  more  surprising  that  he  should,  at  no  great 
distance  of  time,  have  engaged  gratuitously  in  a  contest 
which  brought  him  no  honour,  and  in  which  his  allies 
were  quite  unworthy  of  him,  Elkanah  Settle  was  one  of 
Rochester's  innumerable  led-poets,  and  was  too  utterly  be- 
neath contempt  to  deserve  even  Rochester's  spite.  The 
character  of  Doeg,  ten  years  later,  did  Settle  complete 
justice.  He  had  a  "  blundering  kind  of  melody  "  about 
him,  but  absolutely  nothing  else.  However,  a  heroic  play 
of  his,  the  Empress  of  Morocco,  had  considerable  vogue  for 
some  incomprehensible  reason.  Dryden  allowed  himself 
to  be  drawn  by  Crowne  and  Shadwell  into  writing  with 
them  a  pamphlet  of  criticisms  on  the  piece.  Settle  re- 
plied by  a  study,  as  we  should  say  nowadays,  of  the  very 
vulnerable  Conquest  of  Qrarmda.  This  is  the  only  in- 
stance in  which  Dryden  went  out  of  his  way  to  attack  any 
one;  and  even  in  this  instance  Settle  had  given  some 
cause  by  an  allusion  of  a  contemptuous  kind  in  his  preface. 
But  as  a  rule  the  laureate  showed  himself  proof  against 
much  more  venomous  criticisms  than  any  that  Elkanah  was 
capable  of.  It  is  perhaps  not  uncharitable  to  suspect  that 
the  preface  of  the  Empress  of  Morocco  bore  to  some  ex- 
tent the  blame  of  the  Rehearsal,  which  it  must  be  remem- 
bered was  for  years  amplified  and  re-edited  with  parodies 
of  fresh  plays  of  Dryden's  as  they  appeared.  If  this  were 
the  case  it  would  not  be  the  only  instance  of  such  a  trans- 
ference of  irritation,  and  it  would  explain  Dryden's  other- 
wise inexplicable  conduct.  His  attack  on  Settle  is,  from 
a  strictly  literary  point  of  view,  one  of  his  most  unjustifia- 
ble acts.  The  pamphlet,  it  is  true,  is  said  to  have  been 
mainly  "  Starch  Johnny "  Crowne's,  and  the  character  of 
its  strictures  is  quite  different  from  Dryden's  broad  and 
catholic  manner  of  censuring.     But  the  adage,  '*tell  me 


64  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

with  whom  you  live,"  is  peculiarly  applicable  in  such  a 
case,  and  Dryden  must  be  held  responsible  for  the  assault, 
whether  its  venom  be  really  due  to  himself,  to  Crowne,  or 
to  the  foul-mouthed  libeller  of  whose  virulence  the  laure- 
ate himself  was  in  years  to  come  to  have  but  too  familiar 
experience. 

A  very  different  play  in  1672  gave  Dryden  almost  as 
much  credit  in  comedy  as  the  Conquest  of  Granada  in 
tragedy.  There  is,  indeed,  a  tragic  or  serious  underplot 
(and  a  very  ridiculous  one,  too)  in  Marriage  a  la  Mode. 
But  its  main  interest,  and  certainly  its  main  value,  is  comic. 
It  is  Dryden's  only  original  excursion  into  the  realms  of 
the  higher  comedy.  For  his  favourite  pair  of  lovers  he 
here  substitutes  a  quartette.  Rhodophil  and  Doralice  are 
a  fashionable  married  pair,  who,  without  having  actually 
exhausted  their  mutual  affection,  are  of  opinion  that  their 
character  is  quite  gone  if  they  continue  faithful  to  each 
other  any  longer.  Rhodophil  accordingly  lays  siege  to 
Melantha,  a  young  lady  who  is  intended,  though  he  docs 
not  know  this,  to  marry  his  friend  Palamede,  while  Pala- 
mede,  deeply  distressed  at  the  idea  of  matrimony,  devotes 
himself  to  Doralice.  The  cross  purposes  of  this  quartette 
are  admirably  related,  and  we  are  given  to  understand  that 
no  harm  comes  of  it  all.  But  in  Doralice  and  Melantha 
Dryden  has  given  studies  of  womankind  quite  out  of  his 
usual  line.  Melantha  is,  of  course,  far  below  Millamant, 
but  it  is  not  certain  that  that  delightful  creation  of  Con- 
greve's  genius  does  not  owe  something  to  her.  Doralice, 
on  the  other  hand,  has  ideas  as  to  the  philosophy  of  flirta- 
tion which  do  her  no  little  credit.  It  is  a  thousand  pities 
that  the  play  is  written  in  the  language  of  the  time,  which 
makes  it  impossible  to  revive  and  diflBcult  to  read  without 
disgust. 


in]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  65 

Nothing  of  this  kind  can  or  need  be  said  about  the 
play  which  followed,  the  Assignation.  It  is  vulgar,  coarse, 
and  dull;  it  was  damned,  and  deserved  it;  while  its  suc- 
cessor, Amboyna,  is  also  deserving  of  the  same  epithets, 
though  being  a  mere  play  of  ephemeral  interest,  and  serv- 
ing its  turn,  it  was  not  damned.  The  old  story  of  the 
Amboyna  massacre — a  bad  enough  story,  certainly — was 
simply  revived  in  order  to  excite  the  popular  wrath  against 
the  Dutch. 

The  djramatic  production  which  immediately  succeeded 
these  is  one  of  the  most  curious  of  Dryden's  perform- 
ances. A  disinclination  to  put  himself  to  the  trouble  of 
designing  a  wholly  original  composition  is  among  the  most 
noteworthy  of  his  literary  characteristics.  No  man  fol- 
lowed or  copied  in  a  more  original  manner,  but  it  always 
seems  to  have  been  a  relief  to  him  to  have  something  to 
follow  or  to  copy.  Two  at  least  of  his  very  best  produc- 
tions—  All  for  Love  and  Palamon  and  Arcite  —  are  spe- 
cially remarkable  in  this  respect.  We  can  hardly  say  that 
the  State  of  Innocence  ranks  with  either  of  these ;  yet  it 
has  considerable  merits — merits  of  which  very  few  of 
those  who  repeat  the  story  about  "  tagging  Milton's  verses  " 
are  aware.  As  for  that  story  itself,  it  is  not  particularly 
creditable  to  the  good  manners  of  the  elder  poet.  "  Ay, 
young  man,  you  may  tag  my  verses  if  you  will,"  is  the 
traditional  reply  which  Milton  is  said  to  have  made  to 
Dryden's  request  for  permission  to  write  the  opera.  The 
question  of  Dryden's  relationship  to  Milton  and  his  early 
opinion  of  Paradise  Lost  is  rather  a  question  for  a  Life  of 
Milton  than  for  the  present  pages :  it  is  sufficient  to  say 
that,  with  his  unfailing  recognition  of  good  work,  Dryden 
undoubtedly  appreciated  Milton  to  the  full  long  before 
Addison,  as  it  is  vulgarly  held,  taught  the  British  public 


66  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

to  admire  him.  As  for  the  State  of  Innocence  itself,  the 
conception  of  such  an  opera  has  sometimes  been  derided 
as  preposterous — a  derision  which  seems  to  overlook  the 
fact  that  Milton  was  himself,  in  some  degree,  indebted  to 
an  Italian  dramatic  original.  The  piece  is  not  wholly  in 
rhyme,  but  contains  some  very  fine  passages. 

The  time  was  approaching,  however,  when  Dryden  was 
to  quit  his  "long-loved  mistress  Rhyme,"  as  far  as  dra- 
matic writing  was  concerned.  These  words  occur  in  the 
prologue  to  Aurengzebe,  which  appeared  in  16V  5.  It  would 
appear,  indeed,  that  at  this  time  Dryden  was  thinking  of 
deserting  not  merely  rhymed  plays,  but  play-writing  alto- 
gether. The  dedication  to  Mulgrave  contains  one  of  sev- 
eral allusions  to  his  well-known  plan  of  writing  a  great 
heroic  poem.  Sir  George  Mackenzie  had  recently  put 
him  upon  the  plan  of  reading  through  most  of  the  earlier 
English  poets,  and  he  had  done  so  attentively,  with  the 
result  of  aspiring  to  the  epic  itself.  But  he  still  continued 
to  write  dramas,  though  Aurengzebe  was  his  last  in  rhyme, 
at  least  wholly  in  rhyme.  It  is  in  some  respects  a  very 
noble  play,  free  from  the  rants,  the  preposterous  bustle, 
and  the  still  more  preposterous  length  of  the  Conquest  of 
Granada,  while  possessing  most  of  the  merits  of  that  sin- 
gular work  in  an  eminent  degree.  Even  Dryden  hardly 
ever  went  farther  in  cunning  of  verse  than  in  some  of  the 
passages  of  Aurengzebe,  such  as  that  well-known  one  which 
seems  to  take  up  an  echo  of  Macbeth  : 

*'  When  I  consider  life,  'tis  all  a  cheat. 
Yet,  fooled  with  hope,  men  favour  the  deceit, 
Trust  on,  and  think  to-morrow  will  repay. 
To-morrow's  falser  than  the  former  day, 
Lies  worse,  and  while  it  says,  we  shall  be  blest 
With  some  new  joys,  cuts  off  what  we  posseat. 


ni.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  67 

Strange  cozenage !  none  would  live  past  years  again, 
Yet  all  hope  pleasure  in  what  yet  remain, 
And  from  the  dregs  of  Me  tbink  to  receive 
What  the  first  sprightly  running  could  not  give. 
I'm  tired  with  waiting  for  this  chemic  gold 
Which  fools  us  young  and  beggars  us  when  old." 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  moralizing  of  this  melancholy 
kind  in  the  play,  the  characters  of  which  are  drawn  with 
a  serious  completeness  not  previously  attempted  by  the 
author.  It  is  perhaps  the  only  one  of  Dryden's  which, 
with  very  little  alteration,  might  be  acted,  at  least  as  a 
curiosity,  at  the  present  day.  It  is  remarkable  that  the 
structure  of  the  verse  in  the  play  itself  would  have  led  to 
the  conclusion  that  Dryden  was  about  to  abandon  rhyme. 
There  is  in  Aurengzebe  a  great  tendency  towards  enjamhe- 
ment ;  and  as  soon  as  this  tendency  gets  the  upper  hand, 
a  recurrence  to  blank  verse  is,  in  English  dramatic  writing, 
tolerably  certain.  For  the  intonation  of  English  is  not, 
like  the  intonation  of  French,  such  that  rhyme  is  an  abso- 
lute necessity  to  distinguish  verse  from  prose  ;  and  where 
this  necessity  does  not  exist,  rhyme  must  always  appear 
to  an  intelligent  critic  a  more  or  less  impertinent  intrusion 
in  dramatic  poetry.  Indeed,  the  main  thing  which  had 
for  a  time  converted  Dryden  and  others  to  the  use  of  the 
couplet  in  drama  was  a  curious  notion  that  blank  verse 
was  too  easy  for  long  and  dignified  compositions.  It  was 
thought  by  others  that  the  secret  of  it  had  been  lost,  and 
that  the  choice  was  practically  between  bad  blank  verse 
and  good  rhyme.  In  All  for  Love  Dryden  very  shortly 
showed,  ambulando,  that  this  notion  was  wholly  ground- 
less. From  this  time  forward  he  was  faithful  to  the  model 
he  had  now  adopted,  and — which  was  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance— he  induced  others  to  be  faithful  too.     Had  it 


68  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

not  been  for  this,  it  is  almost  certain  that  Venice  Preserved 
would  have  been  in  rhyme ;  that  is  to  say,  that  it  would 
have  been  spoilt.  In  this  same  year,  1675,  a  publisher, 
Bentley  (of  whom  Dryden  afterwards  spoke  with  consid- 
erable bitterness),  brought  out  a  play  called  The  Mistaken 
Husband,  which  is  stated  to  have  been  revised,  and  to  have 
had  a  scene  added  to  it  by  Dryden.  Dryden,  however, 
definitely  disowned  it,  and  I  cannot  think  that  it  is  in  any 
part  his ;  though  it  is  fair  to  say  that  some  good  judges, 
notably  Mr.  Swinburne,  think  differently.*  Nearly  three 
years  passed  without  anything  of  Dryden's  appearing,  and 
at  last,  at  the  end  of  1677,  or  the  beginning  of  1678,  ap- 
peared a  play  as  much  better  than  Aurengzehe  as  Aureng- 
zebe  was  better  than  its  forerunners.  This  was  All  for 
Love,  his  first  drama,  in  blank  verse,  and  his  *'  only  play 
written  for  himself."  More  will  be  said  later  on  the  cu- 
rious fancy  which  made  him  tread  in  the  very  steps  of 
Shakspeare.  It  is  suflBcient  to  say  now  that  the  attempt, 
apparently  foredoomed  to  hopeless  failure,  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  great  success.     Antony  and  Cleopatra  a,nd  All  for 

'  The  list  of  Dryden's  spurious  or  doubtful  works  is  not  large  or 
important.  But  a  note  of  Pepys,  mentioning  a  play  of  Dryden  en- 
titled Ladies  d  la  Mode,  which  was  acted  and  damned  in  1668,  has 
puzzled  the  commentators.  There  is  no  trace  of  this  Ladies  a  la 
Mode.  But  Mr.  E.  W.  Gosse  has  in  his  collection  a  play  entitled  The 
Mall,  or  Tlie  Modish  Lovers,  which  he  thinks  may  possibly  be  the  very 
"  mean  thing  "  of  Pepys'  scornful  mention.  The  difference  of  title 
is  not  fatal,  for  Samuel  was  not  over-accurate  in  such  matters.  The 
play  is  anonymous,  but  the  preface  is  signed  J.  D.  The  date  is  1674, 
and  the  printing  is  execrable,  and  evidently  not  revised  by  the  author, 
whoever  he  was.  Notwithstanding  this,  the  prologue,  the  epilogue, 
and  a  song  contain  some  vigorous  verse  and  phrase  sometimes  not  a 
little  suggestive  of  Dryden.  In  the  entire  absence  of  external  evi- 
dence connecting  him  with  it,  the  question,  though  one  of  much  in- 
terest, is  perhaps  not  one  to  be  dealt  with  at  any  length  here. 


III.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  59 

Love^  when  they  are  contrasted,  only  show  by  the  contrast 
the  difference  of  kind,  not  the  difference  of  degree,  be- 
tween their  writers.  The  heroic  conception  has  here,  in 
all  probability,  as  favourable  exposition  given  to  it  as  it  is 
capable  of,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  makes  a  not  un- 
favourable show  even  without  the  "dull  sweets  of  rhyme" 
to  drug  the  audience  into  good  humour  with  it.  The  fa- 
mous scene  between  Antony  and  Ventidius  divides  with 
the  equally  famous  scene  in  Don  Sebastian  between  Sebas- 
tian and  Dorax  the  palm  among  Dryden's  dramatic  efforts. 
But  as  a  whole  the  play  is,  I  think,  superior  to  Don  Sebas- 
tian. The  blank  verse,  too,  is  particularly  interesting,  be- 
cause it  was  almost  its  author's  first  attempt  at  that  crux  ; 
and  because,  for  at  least  thirty  years,  hardly  any  tolerable 
blank  verse — omitting  of  course  Milton's — had  been  writ- 
ten by  any  one.  The  model  is  excellent,  and  it  speaks 
Dryden's  unerring  literary  sense,  that,  fresh  as  he  was  from 
the  study  of  Paradise  Lost,  and  great  as  was  his  admira- 
tion for  its  author,  he  does  not  for  a  moment  attempt  to 
confuse  the  epic  and  the  tragic  modes  of  the  style.  All 
for  Love  was,  and  deserved  to  be,  successful.  The  play 
which  followed  it,  Limberham,  was,  and  deserved  to  be, 
damned.  It  must  be  one  of  the  most  astonishing  things 
to  any  one  who  has  not  fully  grasped  the  weakness  as  well 
as  the  strength  of  Dryden's  character,  that  the  noble  mat- 
ter and  manner  of  Aurengzebe  and  All  for  Love  should 
have  been  followed  by  this  filthy  stuff.  As  a  play,  it  is  by 
no  means  Dryden's  worst  piece  of  work ;  but,  in  all  other 
respects,  the  less  said  about  it  the  better.  During  the  time 
of  its  production  the  author  collaborated  with  Lee  in  writ- 
ing the  tragedy  of  CEdipus,  in  which  both  the  friends  are 
to  be  seen  almost  at  their  best.  On  Dryden's  part,  the 
lyric  incantation  scenes  arc  perhaps  most  noticeable,  and 


00  DRTDEN.  [chap. 

Lee  mingles  throughout  his  usual  bombast  with  his  usual 
splendid  poetry.  If  any  one  thinks  this  expression  hy- 
perbolical, I  shall  only  ask  him  to  read  (Edipus,  instead 
of  taking  the  traditional  witticisms  about  Lee  for  gospel. 
There  is  of  course  plenty  of — 

"  Let  gods  meet  gods  and  jostle  in  the  dark," 

and  the  other  fantastic  follies,  into  which  "  metaphysical'* 
poetry  and  "heroic"  plays  had  seduced  men  of  talent, 
and  sometimes  of  genius ;  but  these  can  be  excused  when 
they  lead  to  such  a  passage  as  that  where  CEdipus  cries— 

"  Thou  coward !  yet 
Art  living  ?  canst  not,  wilt  not  find  the  road 
To  the  great  palace  of  magnificent  death, 
Though  thousand  ways  lead  to  his  thousand  doors 
Which  day  and  night  are  still  unbarred  for  alL" 

CEdipus  led  to  a  quarrel  with  the  players  of  the  Bang's 
Theatre,  of  the  merits  of  which,  as  we  only  have  a  one- 
sided statement,  it  is  not  easy  to  judge.  But  Dryden 
seems  to  have  formed  a  connexion  about  this  time  with 
the  other  or  Duke's  company,  and  by  them  (April,  1679) 
a  "potboiling"  adaptation  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  was 
brought  out,  which  might  much  better  have  been  left  un- 
attempted.  Two  years  afterwards  appeared  the  last  play 
(leaving  operas  and  the  scenes  contributed  to  the  Duke  of 
Guise  out  of  the  question)  that  Dryden  was  to  write  for 
many  years.  This  was  The  Spanish  Friar,  a.  popular  piece, 
possessed  of  a  good  deal  of  merit,  from  the  technical  point 
of  view  of  the  play-wright,  but  which  I  think  has  been 
somewhat  over-rated,  as  far  as  literary  excellence  is  con- 
cerned. The  principal  character  is  no  doubt  amusing,  but 
he  is  heavily  indebted  to  Falstaff  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
Fletcher's  Lopez  on  the  other ;  and  he  reminds  the  reader 


m.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTrVTTY.  61 

of  both  his  ancestors  in  a  way  which  cannot  but  be  un« 
favourable  to  himself.  The  play  is  to  me  most  interesting 
because  of  the  light  it  throws  on  Dryden's  grand  charac- 
teristic, the  consummate  craftsmanship  with  which  he  could 
throw  himself  into  the  popular  feeling  of  the  hour.  This 
"Protestant  play"  is  perhaps  his  most  notable  achieve- 
ment of  the  kind  in  drama,  and  it  may  be  admitted  that 
some  other  achievements  of  the  same  kind  are  less  cred- 
itable. 

Allusion  has  more  than  once  been  made  to  the  very  high 
quality,  from  the  literary  point  of  view,  of  the  songs  which 
appear  in  nearly  all  the  plays  of  this  long  list.  They  con- 
stitute Dryden's  chief  title  to  a  high  rank  as  a  composer 
of  strictly  lyrical  poetry ;  and  there  are  indeed  few  things 
which  better  illustrate  the  range  of  his  genius  than  these 
exquisite  snatches.  At  first  sight,  it  would  not  seem  by 
any  means  likely  that  a  poet  whose  greatest  triumphs  were 
won  in  the  fields  of  satire  and  of  argumentative  verse 
should  succeed  in  such  things.  Ordinary  lyric,  especially 
of  the  graver  and  more  elaborate  kind,  might  not  surprise 
us  from  such  a  man.  But  the  song-gift  is  something  dis- 
tinct from  the  faculty  of  ordinary  lyrical  composition ;  and 
there  is  certainly  nothing  which  necessarily  infers  it  in  the 
pointed  declamation  and  close-ranked  argument  with  which 
the  name  of  Dryden  is  oftenest  associated.  But  the  later 
seventeenth  century  had  a  singular  gift  for  such  perform- 
ance—  a  kind  of  swan-song,  it  might  be  thought,  before 
the  death-like  slumber  which,  with  few  and  brief  intervals, 
was  to  rest  upon  the  English  lyric  for  a  hundred  years. 
Dorset,  Rochester,  even  Mulgrave,  wrote  singularly  fasci- 
nating songs,  as  smooth  and  easy  as  Moore's,  and  with  far 
less  of  the  commonplace  and  vulgar  about  them.  Aphra 
Behn  was  an  admirable,  and  Tom  Durfey  a  far  from  des- 


62  DRYDEN.  [chap 

picable,  songster.  Even  among  the  common  run  of  play- 
wrights, who  have  left  no  lyrical  and  not  much  literary 
reputation,  scraps  and  snatches  which  have  the  true  song 
stamp  are  not  unfrequently  to  be  found.  But  Dryden 
excelled  them  all  in  the  variety  of  his  cadences  and  the 
ring  of  his  lines.  Nowhere  do  we  feel  more  keenly  the 
misfortune  of  his  licence  of  language,  which  prevents  too 
many  of  these  charming  songs  from  being  now  quoted  or 
sung.  Their  abundance  may  be  illustrated  by  the  fact 
that  a  single  play,  The  Mock  Astrologer,  contains  no  less 
than  four  songs  of  the  very  first  lyrical  merit.  "You 
charmed  me  not  with  that  fair  face,"  is  an  instance  of  the 
well-known  common  measure  which  is  so  specially  Eng- 
lish,  and  which  is  poetry  or  doggrel  according  to  its  ca- 
dence. "After  the  pangs  of  a  desperate  lover"  is  one 
of  the  rare  examples  of  a  real  dactylic  metre  in  English, 
were  the  dactyls  are  not,  as  usual,  equally  to  be  scanned 
as  anapaests.  "  Calm  was  the  even,  and  clear  was  the  sky," 
is  a  perfect  instance  of  what  may  be  called  archness  in 
song;  and  "Celimena  of  my  heart,"  though  not  much 
can  be  said  for  the  matter  of  it,  is  at  least  as  much  a  met- 
rical triumph  as  any  of  the  others.  Nor  are  the  other 
plays  less  rich  in  similar  work.  The  song  beginning 
"  Farewell,  ungrateful  traitor,"  gives  a  perfect  example  of 
a  metre  which  has  been  used  more  than  once  in  our  own 
days  with  great  success ;  and  "  Long  between  Love  and 
Fear  Phyllis  tormented,"  which  occurs  in  The  Assignation, 
gives  yet  another  example  of  the  singular  fertility  with 
which  Dryden  devised  and  managed  measures  suitable  for 
song.  His  lyrical  faculty  impelled  him  also — especially 
in  his  early  plays — to  luxuriate  in  incantation  scenes,  lyr. 
ical  dialogues,  and  so  forth.  These  have  been  ridiculed, 
not  altogether  unjustly,  in  The  Rehearsal ;  but  the  incan< 


m.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTTVITY.  83 

tation  scene  in  (Edipus  is  very  far  above  the  average  of 
such  things ;  and  of  not  a  few  passages  in  King  Arthur 
at  least  as  much  may  be  said. 

Dryden's  energy  was  so  entirely  occupied  with  play- 
writing  during  this  period  that  he  had  hardly,  it  would 
appear,  time  or  desire  to  undertake  any  other  work.  To- 
wards the  middle  of  it,  however,  when  he  had,  by  poems 
and  plays,  already  established  himself  as  the  greatest  liv- 
ing poet — Milton  being  out  of  the  question — he  began  to 
be  asked  for  prologues  and  epilogues  by  other  poets,  or 
by  the  actors  on  the  occasion  of  the  revival  of  old  plays. 
These  prologues  and  epilogues  have  often  been  comment- 
ed upon  as  one  of  the  most  curious  literary  phenomena  of 
the  time.  The  custom  is  still,  on  special  occasions,  spar- 
ingly kept  up  on  the  stage ;  but  the  prologue,  and  still 
more  the  epilogue,  to  the  Westminster  play  are  the  chief 
living  representatives  of  it.  It  was  usual  to  comment  in 
these  pieces  on  circumstances  of  the  day,  political  and  oth- 
er. It  was  also  usual  to  make  personal  appeals  to  the  au- 
dience for  favour  and  support  very  much  in  the  manner 
of  the  old  Trouveres  when  they  commended  their  wares. 
But  more  than  all,  and  worst  of  all,  it  was  usual  to  indulge 
in  the  extremest  licence  both  of  language  and  meaning. 
The  famous  epilogue — one  of  Dryden's  own — to  Tyran- 
nic Love,  in  which  Mrs.  Eleanor  Gwyn,  being  left  for  dead 
on  the  stage,  in  the  character  of  St.  Catherine,  and  being 
about  to  be  carried  out  by  the  scene-shifters,  exclaims — 

"  Hold !  are  you  mad  ?  you  damned  confounded  dog, 
I  am  to  rise  and  speak  the  epilogue," 

is  only  a  very  mild  sample  of  these  licences,  upon  which 
Macaulay  has  commented  with  a  severity  which  is  for 
once  absolutely  justifiable.     There  was,  however,  no  poet 


ft4  DRYDEN.  [oiap. 

who  had  the  knack  of  telling  allusion  to  passing  events 
as  Dryden  had,  and  he  was  early  engaged  as  a  prologue 
writer.  The  first  composition  that  we  have  of  this  kind 
written  for  a  play  not  his  own  is  the  prologue  to  Albuma- 
zar,  a  curious  piece,  believed,  but  not  known,  to  have  been 
written  by  a  certain  Tomkis  in  James  the  First's  reign, 
and  ranking  among  the  many  which  have  been  attributed 
with  more  or  less  (generally  less)  show  of  reason  to  Shak- 
speare.  Dryden's  knowledge  of  the  early  English  drama 
was  not  exhaustive,  and  he  here  makes  a  charge  of  plagi- 
arism against  Ben  Jonson,  for  which  there  is  in  all  proba- 
bility not  the  least  ground.  The  piece  contains,  however.^ 
as  do  most  of  these  vigorous,  though  unequal  composi- 
tions, many  fine  lines.  The  next  production  of  the  kind 
not  intended  for  a  play  of  his  own  is  the  prologue  to  the 
first  performance  of  the  king's  servants,  after  they  ha(J 
been  burnt  out  of  their  theatre,  and  this  is  followed  by 
many  others.  In  1673  a  prologue  to  the  University  of 
Oxford,  spoken  when  the  Silent  Woman  was  acted,  is  the 
first  of  many  of  the  same  kind.  It  has  been  mentioned 
that  Dryden  speaks  slightingly  of  these  University  prol- 
ogues, but  they  are  among  his  best  pieces  of  the  class,  and 
are  for  the  most  part  entirely  free  from  the  ribaldry  with 
which  he  was  but  too  often  wont  to  alloy  them.  In  these 
years  pieces  intended  to  accompany  Carlell's  Arviragus 
and  Philicia,  Etherege's  Man  of  Mode,  Charles  Davenant's 
Circe,  Lee's  Mithridates,  Shadwell's  True  Widow,  Lee's 
Ccesar  Borgia,  Tate's  Loyal  General,  and  not  a  few  others 
occur.  A  specimen  of  the  style  in  which  Dryden  excelled 
so  remarkably,  and  which  is  in  itself  so  utterly  dead,  may 
fairly  be  given  here,  and  nothing  can  be  better  for  the 
purpose  than  the  most  famous  prologue  to  the  University 
o,f  Oxford.    This  is  the  prologue  in  which  the  poet  at 


m.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  65 

once  displays  his  exquisite  capacity  for  flattery,  his  com- 
mand over  versification,  and  his  singular  antipathy  to  his 
own  Alma  Mater ;  an  antipathy  which,  it  may  be  pointed 
out,  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  of  his  seeking  his  master's 
degree  rather  at  Lambeth  than  at  Cambridge.  Whether 
any  solution  to  the  enigma  can  be  found  in  Dennis's  re- 
mark that  the  "  younger  fry  "  at  Cambridge  preferred  Set- 
tle to  their  own  champion,  it  would  be  vain  to  attempt  to 
determine.  The  following  piece,  however,  may  be  taken 
as  a  fair  specimen  of  the  more  decent  prologue  of  the 
later  seventeenth  century : 

"  Though  actors  cannot  much  of  learning  boast, 
Of  all  who  want  it,  we  admire  it  most : 
We  love  the  praises  of  a  learned  pit, 
As  we  remotely  are  allied  to  wit. 
We  speak  our  poet's  wit,  and  trade  in  ore, 
Like  those  who  touch  upon  tke  golden  shore ; 
Betwixt  our  judges  can  distinction  make, 
Discern  how  much,  and  why,  our  poems  take ; 
Mark  if  the  fools,  or  men  of  sense,  rejoice ; 
Whether  the  applause  be  only  sound  or  voice. 
When  our  fop  gallants,  or  our  city  folly. 
Clap  over-loud,  it  makes  us  melancholy  : 
We  doubt  that  scene  which  does  their  wonder  raise. 
And,  for  their  ignorance,  contemn  their  praise. 
Judge,  then,  if  we  who  act,  and  they  who  write, 
Should  not  be  proud  of  giving  you  delight. 
London  likes  grossly ;  but  this  nicer  pit 
Examines,  fathoms  all  the  depths  of  wit ; 
The  ready  finger  lays  on  every  blot ; 
Knows  what  should  justly  please,  and  what  should  not. 
Nature  herself  lies  open  to  your  view. 
You  judge,  by  her,  what  draught  of  her  is  true, 
Where  outlines  false,  and  colours  seem  too  faint, 
Where  bunglers  daub,  and  where  true  poets  paint. 
4 


66  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

But  by  the  sacred  genius  of  this  place, 

By  every  Muse,  by  each  domestic  grace, 

Be  kind  to  wit,  which  but  endeavours  well. 

And,  where  you  judge,  presumes  not  to  exceL 

Our  poets  hither  for  adoption  come. 

As  nations  sued  to  be  made  free  of  Rome ; 

Not  in  the  suffragating  tribes  to  stand, 

But  in  your  utmost,  last,  provincial  band. 

If  his  ambition  may  those  hopes  pursue, 

Who  with  reUgion  loves  your  arts  and  you, 

Oxford  to  him  a  dearer  name  shall  be, 

Than  his  own  mother-university. 

Thebes  did  his  green,  unknowing  youth  engage ; 

He  chooses  Athens  in  his  riper  age." 

During  this  busy  period,  Dryden's  domestic  life  had 
been  comparatively  uneventful.  His  eldest  son  had  been 
bom  either  in  1665  or  in  1666,  it  seems  not  clear  which. 
His  second  son,  John,  was  born  a  year  or  two  later ;  and 
the  third,  Erasmus  Henry,  in  May,  1669.  These  three 
sons  were  all  the  children  Lady  Elizabeth  brought  him. 
The  two  eldest  went,  like  their  father,  to  Westminster, 
and  had  their  schoolboy  troubles  there,  as  letters  of  Dryden 
still  extant  show.  During  the  whole  period,  except  in  his 
brief  visits  to  friends  and  patrons  in  the  country,  he  was 
established  in  the  house  in  Gerrard  Street,  which  is  identi- 
fied with  his  name.'  While  the  children  were  young,  his 
means  must  have  been  sufficient,  and,  for  those  days,  con- 

'  A  house  in  Fetter  Lane,  now  divided  into  two,  bears  a  plate  stating 
that  Dryden  lived  there.  The  plate,  as  I  was  informed  by  the  pres- 
ent occupiers,  replaces  a  stone  slab  or  inscription  which  was  destroy- 
ed in  some  alterations  not  very  many  years  ago.  I  know  of  no  ref- 
erence to  this  house  in  any  book,  nor  does  Mr.  J.  C.  Collins,  who 
called  my  attention  to  it.  If  Dryden  ever  lived  here,  it  must  have 
been  between  his  residence  with  Herringman  and  his  marriage. 


m.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  67 

siderable.  With  his  patrimony  included,  Malonc  has  cal- 
culated that  for  great  part  of  the  time  his  income  must 
have  been  fully  700/.  a  year,  equal  in  purchasing  power 
to  2000/.  a  year  in  Malone's  time,  and  probably  to  nearer 
3000/.  now.  In  June,  1668,  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts, 
to  which,  for  some  reason  or  other,  Dryden  had  never  pro- 
ceeded at  Cambridge,  was,  at  the  recommendation  of  the 
king,  conferred  upon  him  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. Two  years  later,  in  the  summer  of  16V0,  he  was 
made  poet  laureate  and  historiographer  royal.'  Davenant, 
the  last  holder  of  the  laureateship,  had  died  two  years 
previously,  and  Howell,  the  well-known  author  of  the  Epis- 
toloe  Uo-ElianoB,  and  the  late  holder  of  the  historiogra- 
phership,  four  years  before.  When  the  two  appointments 
were  conferred  on  Dryden,  the  salary  was  fixed  in  the 
patent  at  200/.  a  year,  besides  the  butt  of  sack  which  the 
economical  James  afterwards  cut  off,  and  arrears  since 
Davenant's  death  were  to  be  paid.  In  the  same  year,  1670, 
the  death  of  his  mother  increased  his  income  by  the  20/. 
a  year  which  had  been  payable  to  her  from  the  North- 
amptonshire property.  From  1667,  or  thereabouts,  Dry- 
den had  been  in  possession  of  a  valuable  partnership  with 
the  players  of  the  king's  house,  for  whom  he  contracted  to 
write  three  plays  a  year  in  consideration  of  a  share  and  a 
quarter  of  the  profits.  Dryden's  part  of  the  contract  was 
not  performed,  it  seems ;  but  the  actors  declare  that,  at  any 
rate  for  some  years,  their  part  was,  and  that  the  pt)et's 
receipts  averaged  from  300/.  to  400/.  a  year,  besides  which 
he  had  (sometimes,  at  any  rate)  the  third  night,  and  (we 

'  The  patent,  given  by  Malone,  is  dated  Aug.  18.  Mr.  W.  Noel 
Sainabury,  of  the  Record  OflBce,  has  pointed  out  to  me  a  preliminary 
warrant  to  "  our  Attorney  or  Solicitor  Generall "  to  "  prepare  a  Bill " 
for  the  purpose  dated  April  13. 


68  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

may  suppose  always)  the  bookseller's  fee  for  the  copyright 
of  the  printed  play,  which  together  averaged  100/.  a  play 
or  more.  Lastly,  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  period  most 
probably,  but  certainly  before  1679,  the  king  granted  him 
an  additional  pension  of  100/.  a  year.  The  importance 
of  this  pension  is  more  than  merely  pecuniary,  for  this  is 
the  grant,  the  confirmation  of  which,  after  some  delay,  by 
James,  was  taken  by  Macaulay  as  the  wages  of  apostasy. 

The  pecuniary  prosperity  of  this  time  was  accompanied 
by  a  corresponding  abundance  of  the  good  things  which 
generally  go  with  wealth.  Dryden  was  familiar  with  most 
of  the  literary  nobles  and  gentlemen  of  Charles's  court, 
and  Dorset,  Etherege,  Mulgrave,  Sedley,  and  Rochester 
were  among  his  special  intimates  or  patrons,  whichever 
word  may  be  preferred.  The  somewhat  questionable  boast 
which  he  made  of  this  familiarity  Nemesis  was  not  long 
in  punishing,  and  the  instrument  which  Nemesis  chose  was 
Rochester  himself.  It  might  be  said  of  this  famous  per- 
son, whom  Etherege  has  hit  off  so  admirably  in  his 
Dorimant,  that  he  was,  except  in  intellect,  the  worst  of  all 
the  courtiers  of  the  time,  because  he  was  one  of  the  most 
radically  unamiable.  It  was  truer  of  him  even  than  of 
Pope,  that  he  was  sure  to  play  some  monkey  trick  or 
other  on  those  who  were  unfortunate  enough  to  be  his  in- 
timates. He  had  relations  with  most  of  the  literary  men 
of  his  time,  but  those  relations  almost  always  ended  badly. 
Sometimes  he  set  them  at  each  other  like  dogs,  or  procured 
for  one  some  court  favour  certain  to  annoy  a  rival ;  some- 
times he  satirized  them  coarsely  in  his  foul-mouthed 
poems;  sometimes,  as  we  shall  see,  he  forestalled  the 
Chevalier  de  Rohan  in  his  method  of  repartee.  As  early 
as  1675  Rochester  had  disobliged  Dryden,  though  the  ex- 
act amount  of  the  injury  has  certainly  been  exaggerated 


III.]  PERIOD  OF  DRAMATIC  ACTIVITY.  69 

by  Malone,  whom  most  biographers,  except  Mr.  Christie, 
have  followed.  There  is  little  doubt  (though  Mr.  Christie 
thinks  otherwise)  that  one  of  the  chief  functions  of  the 
poet  laureate  was  to  compose  masques  and  such  like  pieces 
to"  be  acted  by  the  court ;  indeed,  this  appears  to  have 
been  the  main  regular  duty  of  the  oflBce  at  least  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  That  Crowne  should  have  been 
charged  with  the  composition  of  Calisto  was,  therefore,  a 
slight  to  Dryden.  Crowne  was  not  a  bad  play-wright. 
He  might  perhaps,  by  a  plagiarism  from  Lamb's  criticism 
on  Heywood,  be  called  a  kind  of  prose  Dryden,  and  a 
characteristic  saying  of  Dryden's,  which  has  been  handed 
down,  seems  to  show  that  the  latter  recognized  the  fact. 
But  the  addition  to  the  charge  against  Rochester  that  he 
afterwards  interfered  to  prevent  an  epilogue,  which  Dryden 
wrote  for  Crowne's  piece,  from  being  recited,  rests  upon 
absolutely  no  authority,  and  it  is  not  even  certain  that  the 
epilogue  referred  to  was  actually  written  by  Dryden. 

In  the  year  1679,  however,  Dryden  had  a  much  more 
serious  taste  of  Rochester's  malevolence.  He  had  recently 
become  very  intimate  with  Lord  Mulgrave,  who  had  quar- 
relled with  Rochester.  Personal  courage  was  not  Roches- 
ter's forte,  and  he  had  shown  the  white  feather  when 
challenged  by  Mulgrave.  Shortly  afterwards  there  was 
circulated  in  manuscript  an  Essay  on  Satire,  containing 
virulent  attacks  on  the  king,  on  Rochester,  and  the  Duch- 
esses of  Cleveland  and  Portsmouth.  How  any  one  could 
ever  have  suspected  that  the  poem  was  Dryden's  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  understand.  To  begin  with,  he  never  at  any  time 
in  his  career  lent  himself  as  a  hired  literary  bravo  to  any 
private  person.  In  the  second  place,  that  he  should  at- 
tack the  king,  from  whom  he  derived  the  greatest  part  of 
his  income,  was  inconceivable.    Thirdly,  no  literary  judge 


70  DRYDEN.  [chap.  ni. 

could  for  one  moment  connect  him  with  the  shambling 
doggrel  lines  which  distinguish  the  Essay  on  Satire  in  its 
original  form,  A  very  few  couplets  have  some  faint  ring 
of  Dryden's  verse,  but  not  more  than  is  perceivable  in  the 
work  of  many  other  poets  and  poetasters  of  the  time. 
Lastly,  Mulgrave,  who,  with  some  bad  qualities,  was  truth- 
ful and  fearless  enough,  expressly  absolves  Dryden  as  be- 
ing not  only  innocent,  but  ignorant  of  the  whole  matter. 
However,  Rochester  chose  to  identify  him  as  the  author, 
and  in  letters  still  extant  almost  expressly  states  his  belief 
in  the  fact,  and  threatens  to  "  leave  the  repartee  to  Black 
Will  with  a  cudgel."  On  the  18th  December,  as  Dryden 
was  going  home  at  night,  through  Rose  Alley,  Coven  t 
Garden,  he  was  attacked  and  beaten  by  masked  men. 
Fifty  pounds  reward  (deposited  at  what  is  now  called 
Childs'  Bank)  was  offered  for  the  discovery  of  the  offend- 
ers, and  afterwards  a  pardon  was  promised  to  the  actual 
criminals  if  they  would  divulge  the  name  of  their  employ- 
er, but  nothing  came  of  it.  The  intelligent  critics  of  the 
time  affected  to  consider  the  matter  a  disgrace  to  Dryden, 
and  few  of  the  subsequent  attacks  on  him  fail  to  notice 
it  triumphantly.  How  frequent  those  attacks  soon  be- 
came the  next  chapter  will  show. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SATIRICAL    AND    DIDACTIC    POEMS. 

In  the  year  1680  a  remarkable  change  came  over  the  char- 
acter of  Dryden's  work.  Had  he  died  in  this  year  (and  he 
had  already  reached  an  age  at  which  many  men's  work  is 
done)  he  would  not  at  the  present  time  rank  very  high  even 
among  the  second  class  of  English  poets.  In  pure  poe- 
try he  had  published  nothing  of  the  slightest  consequence 
for  fourteen  years,  and  though  there  was  much  admirable 
work  in  his  dramas,  they  could  as  wholes  only  be  praised 
by  allowance.  Of  late  years,  too,  he  had  given  up  the 
style  —  rhymed  heroic  drama  —  which  he  had  specially 
made  his  own.  He  had  been  for  some  time  casting  about 
for  an  opportunity  of  again  taking  up  strictly  poetical 
work ;  and,  as  usually  happens  with  the  favourites  of  fort- 
une, a  better  opportunity  than  any  he  could  have  elaborated 
for  himself  was  soon  presented  to  him.  The  epic  poem 
which,  as  he  tells  us,  he  intended  to  write  would  doubtless 
have  contained  many  fine  passages  and  much  splendid 
versification ;  but  it  almost  certainly  would  not  have  been 
the  best  thing  in  its  kind  even  in  its  own  language.  The 
series  of  satirical  and  didactic  poems  which,  in  the  space 
of  less  than  seven  years,  he  was  now  to  produce,  occupies 
the  position  which  the  epic  would  almost  to  a  certainty 
have  failed  to  attain.     Not  only  is  there  nothing  better 


12  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

of  their  own  kind  in  English,  but  it  may  almost  be  said 
that  there  is  nothing  better  in  any  other  literary  language. 
Satire,  argument,  and  exposition  may  possibly  be  half- 
spurious  kinds  of  poetry — that  is  a  question  which  need 
not  be  argued  here.  But  among  satirical  and  didactic 
poems  Absalom  and  Achitopkel,  The  Medal,  Macfiecknoe, 
Reliyio  Laid,  The  Hind  and  the  Panther,  hold  the  first 
place  in  company  with  very  few  rivals.  In  a  certain  kind 
of  satire  to  be  defined  presently  they  have  no  rival  at  all ; 
and  in  a  certain  kind  of  argumentative  exposition  they 
have  no  rival  except  in  Lucretius, 

It  is  probable  that,  until  he  was  far  advanced  in  middle 
life,  Dryden  had  paid  but  little  attention  to  political  and 
religious  controversies,  though  he  was  well  enough  versed 
in  their  terms,  and  had  a  logical  and  almost  scholastic 
mind.  I  have  already  endeavoured  to  show  the  unlikeli- 
ness of  his  ever  having  been  a  very  fervent  Roundhead, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  much  more  probability 
of  his  having  been  a  very  fervent  Royalist.  His  literary 
work,  his  few  friendships,  and  the  tavern-coffeehouse  life 
which  took  up  so  much  of  the  time  of  the  men  of  that 
day,  probably  occupied  him  suflBciently  in  the  days  of  his 
earlier  manhood.  He  was  loyal  enough,  no  doubt,  not 
merely  in  lip-loyalty,  and  was  perfectly  ready  to  furnish 
an  Amhoyna  or  anything  else  that  was  wanted ;  but  for 
the  first  eighteen  years  of  Charles  the  Second's  reign,  the 
nation  at  large  felt  little  interest,  of  the  active  kind,  in  po- 
litical questions.  Dryden  almost  always  reflected  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  nation  at  large.  The  Popish  Plot,  however, 
and  the  dangerous  excitement  which  the  misgovernment  of 
Charles,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  machinations  of  Shaftes- 
bury, on  the  other,  produced,  found  him  at  an  age  when 
serious  subjects  are  at  any  rate,  by  courtesy,  supposed  to 


IT.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  73 

possess  greater  attractions  than  they  exert  in  youth.  Tra- 
dition has  it  that  he  was  more  or  less  directly  encouraged 
by  Charles  to  write  one,  if  not  two,  of  the  poems  which  in 
a  few  months  made  him  the  first  satirist  in  Europe.  It  is 
possible,  for  Charles  had  a  real  if  not  a  very  lively  interest 
in  literature,  was  a  sound  enough  critic  in  his  way,  and 
had  ample  shrewdness  to  perceive  the  advantage  to  his 
own  cause  which  he  might  gain  by  enlisting  Dryden. 
However  this  may  be,  Absalom  and  Achitophel  was  pub- 
lished about  the  middle  of  November,  1681,  a  week  or  so 
before  the  grand  jury  threw  out  the  bill  against  Shaftes- 
bury on  a  charge  of  high  treason.  At  no  time  before, 
and  hardly  at  any  time  since,  did  party-spirit  run  higher ; 
and  though  the  immediate  object  of  the  poem  was  defeat- 
ed by  the  fidelity  of  the  brisk  boys  of  the  city  to  their 
leader,  there  is  no  question  that  the  poem  worked  power- 
fully among  the  influences  which  after  the  most  desperate 
struggle,  short  of  open  warfare,  in  which  any  English  sov- 
ereign has  ever  been  engaged,  finally  won  for  Charles  the 
victory  over  the  Exclusionists,  by  means  at  least  ostensibly 
constitutional  and  legitimate.  It  is,  however,  with  the  lit- 
erary rather  than  with  the  political  aspect  of  the  matter 
that  we  are  here  concerned. 

The  story  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel  has  obvious  capac- 
ities for  political  adaptation,  and  it  had  been  more  than 
once  so  used  in  the  course  of  the  century,  indeed  (it  would 
appear),  in  the  course  of  the  actual  political  struggle  in 
which  Dryden  now  engaged.  Like  many  other  of  the 
greatest  writers,  Dryden  was  wont  to  carry  out  Moliere's 
principle  to  the  fullest,  and  to  care  very  little  for  technical 
originality  of  plan  or  main  idea.  The  form  which  his 
poem  took  was  also  in  many  ways  suggested  by  the  pre- 
vailing literary  tastes  of  the  day.  Both  in  France  and  in 
F    4*  ^ 


W  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

England  the  character  or  portrait,  a  set  description  of  a 
given  person  in  prose  or  verse,  had  for  some  time  been 
fashionable.  Clarendon  in  the  one  country,  Saint  Evre- 
mond  in  the  other,  had  in  particular  composed  prose  por- 
traits which  have  never  been  surpassed.  Dryden,  accord- 
ingly, made  his  poem  little  more  than  a  string  of  such 
portraits,  connected  together  by  the  very  slenderest  thread 
of  narrative,  and  interspersed  with  occasional  speeches  in 
which  the  arguments  of  his  own  side  were  put  in  a  light 
as  favourable,  and  those  of  the  other  in  a  light  as  un- 
favourable, as  possible.  He  was  always  very  careless  of 
anything  like  a  regular  plot  for  his  poems — a  carelessness 
rather  surprising  in  a  practised  writer  for  the  stage.  But 
he  was  probably  right  in  neglecting  this  point.  The  sub- 
jects with  which  he  dealt  were  of  too  vital  an  interest  to 
his  readers  to  allow  them  to  stay  and  ask  the  question, 
whether  the  poems  had  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end. 
Sharp  personal  satire  and  biting  political  denunciation  need- 
ed no  such  setting  as  this — a  setting  which  to  all  appear- 
ance Dryden  was  as  unable  as  he  was  unwilling  to  give. 
He  could,  however,  and  did,  give  other  things  of  much 
greater  importance.  The  wonderful  command  over  the 
couplet  of  which  he  had  displayed  the  beginnings  in  his 
early  poems,  and  which  had  in  twenty  years  of  play-writing 
been  exercised  and  developed  till  its  owner  was  in  as  thor- 
ough training  as  a  professional  athlete,  was  the  first  of 
these.  The  second  was  a  faculty  of  satire,  properly  so 
called,  which  was  entirely  novel.  The  third  was  a  faculty 
of  specious  argument  in  verse,  which,  as  has  been  said,  no 
one  save  Lucretius  has  ever  equalled ;  and  which,  if  it  falls 
short  of  the  great  Roman's  in  logical  exactitude,  hardly 
falls  short  of  it  in  poetical  ornament,  and  excels  it  in  a 
sort  of  triumphant  vivacity  which  hurries  the  reader  along, 


IV.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  76 

whether  he  will  or  no.  All  these  three  gifts  are  almost  in- 
differently exemplified  in  the  series  of  poems  now  under 
discussion,  and  each  of  them  may  deserve  a  little  consid- 
eration before  we  proceed  to  give  account  of  the  poems 
themselves. 

The  versification  of  English  satire  before  Dryden  had 
been  almost  without  exception  harsh  and  rugged.  There 
are  whole  passages  of  Marston  and  of  Donne,  as  well  as 
more  rarely  of  Hall,  which  can  only  be  recognised  for  verse 
by  the  rattle  of  the  rhymes  and  by  a  diligent  scansion  with 
the  finger.  Something  the  same,  allowing  for  the  influence 
of  Waller  and  his  school,  may  be  said  of  Marvell  and  even 
of  Oldham.  Meanwhile,  the  octosyllabic  satire  of  Cleve- 
land, Butler,  and  others,  though  less  violently  uncouth  than 
the  decasyllabics,  was  purposely  grotesque.  There  is  some 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  how  far  the  heroic  satirists  them- 
selves were  intentionally  rugged.  Donne,  when  he  chose, 
could  write  with  perfect  sweetness,  and  Marston  could  be 
smooth  enough  in  blank  verse.  It  has  been  thought  that 
some  mistaken  classical  tradition  made  the  early  satirists 
adopt  their  jaw -breaking  style,  and  there  may  be  some- 
thing to  be  said  for  this ;  but  I  think  that  regard  must, 
in  fairness,  also  be  had  to  the  very  imperfect  command  of 
the  couplet  which  they  possessed.  The  languid  cadence 
of  its  then  ordinary  form  was  unsuited  for  satire,  and  the 
satirists  had  not  the  art  of  quickening  and  varying  it. 
Hence  the  only  resource  was  to  make  it  as  like  prose  as 
possible.  But  Dryden  was  in  no  such  case  ;  his  native 
gifts  and  his  enormous  practice  in  play-writing  had  made 
the  couplet  as  natural  a  vehicle  to  him  for  any  form  of 
discourse  as  blank  verse  or  as  plain  prose.  The  form  of 
it,  too,  which  he  had  most  affected,  was  specially  suited  for 
satire,     in  the  first  place,  this  form  had,  as  has  already 


16  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

been  noted,  a  remarkably  varied  cadence ;  in  the  second, 
its  strong  antitheses  and  smart  telling  hits  lent  themselves 
to  personal  description  and  attack  with  consummate  ease. 
There  are  passages  of  Dryden's  satires  in  which  every 
couplet  has  not  only  the  force  but  the  actual  sound  of  a 
slap  in  the  faee.  The  rapidity  of  movement  from  one 
couplet  to  the  other  is  another  remarkable  characteristic. 
Even  Pope,  master  as  he  was  of  verse,  often  fell  into  the 
fault  of  isolating  his  couplets  too  much,  as  if  he  expected 
applause  between  each,  and  wished  to  give  time  for  it. 
Dryden's  verse,  on  the  other  hand,  strides  along  with  a 
careless  Olympian  motion,  as  if  the  writer  were  looking 
at  his  victims  rather  with  a  kind  of  good-humoured  scorn 
than  with  any  elaborate  triumph. 

This  last  remark  leads  us  naturally  to  the  second  head, 
the  peculiar  character  of  Dryden's  satire  itself.  In  this  re- 
spect it  is  at  least  as  much  distinguished  from  its  prede- 
cessors as  in  the  former.  There  had  been  a  continuous 
tradition  among  satirists  that  they  must  affect  immense 
moral  indignation  at  the  evils  they  attacked.  Juvenal  and 
still  more  Persius  are  probably  responsible  for  this;  and 
even  Dryden's  example  did  not  put  an  end  to  the  practice, 
for  in  the  next  century  it  is  found  in  persons  upon  whom 
it  sits  with  singular  awkwardness — such  as  Churchill  and 
Lloyd.  Now,  this  moral  indignation,  apt  to  be  rather  tire- 
some when  the  subject  is  purely  ethical — Marston  is  a  glar- 
ing example  of  this — becomes  quite  intolerable  when  the 
subject  is  political.  It  never  does  for  the  political  satirist 
to  lose  his  temper,  and  to  rave  and  rant  and  denounce  with 
the  air  of  an  inspired  prophet.  Dryden,  and  perhaps  Dry- 
den  alone,  has  observed  this  rule.  As  I  have  just  observed, 
his  manner  towards  his  subjects  is  that  of  a  cool  and  not 
ill-humoured  scorn.     They  are  great  scoundrels  certainly, 


IV.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  11 

but  they  are  probably  even  more  contemptible  than  they 
are  vicious.     The  well-known  line — 

"  They  got  a  villain,  and  we  lost  a  fool," 

expresses  this  attitude  admirably,  and  the  attitude  in  its 
turn  explains  the  frantic  rage  which  Dryden's  satire  pro- 
duced in  his  opponents.  There  is  yet  another  peculiarity 
of  this  satire  in  which  it  stands  almost  alone.  Most  satir- 
ists are  usually  prone  to  the  error  of  attacking  either  mere 
types,  or  else  individuals  too  definitely  marked  as  indi^nd- 
uals.  The  first  is  the  fault  of  Regnier  and  all  the  minor 
French  satirists ;  the  second  is  the  fault  of  Pope.  In  the 
first  case  the  point  and  zest  of  the  thing  are  apt  to  be  lost, 
and  the  satire  becomes  a  declamation  against  vice  and  fol- 
ly in  the  abstract;  in  the  second  case  a  suspicion  of  per- 
sonal pique  comes  in,  and  it  is  felt  that  the  requirement  of 
art,  the  disengagement  of  the  general  law  from  the  individ- 
ual instance,  is  not  suflBciently  attended  to.  Regnier  per- 
haps only  in  Macette,  Pope  perhaps  only  in  Atticus,  escape 
this  Scylla  and  this  Charybdis ;  but  Dryden  rarely  or  nev- 
er falls  into  cither's  grasp.  His  figures  are  always  at  once 
types  and  individuals.  Zimri  is  at  once  Buckingham  and 
the  idle  grand  seigneur  who  plays  at  politics  and  at  learn- 
ing; Achitophel  at  once  Shaftesbury  and  the  abstract  in- 
triguer; Shimei  at  once  Bethel  and  the  sectarian  politician 
of  all  days.  It  is  to  be  noticed,  also,  that  in  drawing  these 
satirical  portraits  the  poet  has  exercised  a  singular  judgment 
in  selecting  his  traits.  If  Absalom  and  Achitophel  be  com- 
pared with  the  replies  it  called  forth,  this  is  especially  no- 
ticeable. Shadwell,  for  instance,  in  the  almost  incredibly 
scurrilous  libel  which  he  put  forth  in  answer  to  the  Medal, 
accuses  Dryden  of  certain  definite  misdoings  and  missay- 
ings,  most  of  which  are  unbelievable,  while  others  are  in- 


T8  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

conclusive.  Dryden,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  character 
of  Og,  confines  himself  in  the  adroitest  way  to  generalities. 
These  generalities  are  not  only  much  more  effective,  but 
also  much  more  difficult  of  disproval.  When,  to  recur  to 
the  already  quoted  and  typical  line  attacking  the  unlucky 
Johnson,  Dryden  says — 

"  They  got  a  villain,  and  we  lost  a  fool," 

it  is  obviously  useless  for  the  person  assailed  to  sit  down 
and  write  a  rejoinder  tending  to  prove  that  he  is  neither 
one  nor  the  other.  He  might  clear  himself  from  the 
charge  of  villainy,  but  only  at  the  inevitable  cost  of  estab- 
lishing that  of  folly.  But  when  Shadwell,  in  unquotable 
verses,  says  to  Dryden,  on  this  or  that  day  you  did  such 
and  such  a  discreditable  thing,  the  reply  is  obvious.  In 
the  first  place  the  charge  can  be  disproved  ;  in  the  second 
it  can  be  disdained.  When  Dryden  himself  makes  such 
charges,  it  is  always  in  a  casual  and  allusive  way,  as  if 
there  were  no  general  dissent  as  to  the  truth  of  his  alle- 
gation, while  he  takes  care  to  be  specially  happy  in  his 
language.  The  disgraceful  insinuation  against  Forbes, 
the  famous  if  irreverent  dismissal  of  Lord  Howard  of 
Escrick — 

"  And  canting  Nadab  let  oblivion  damn, 
Who  made  new  porridge  for  the  paschal  lamb," 

justify  themselves  by  their  form  if  not  by  their  matter. 
It  has  also  to  be  noted  that  Dryden'ss  facts  are  rarely  dis- 
putable. The  famous  passage  in  which  Settle  and  Shad- 
well  are  yoked  in  a  sentence  of  discriminating  damnation 
is  an  admirable  example  of  this.  It  is  absolutely  true  that 
Settle  had  a  certain  faculty  of  writing,  though  the  matter 
of  his  verse  was  worthless;  and  it  is  absolutely  true  that 


IV.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  19 

Shadwell  wrote  worse,  and  was  in  some  respects  a  duller 
man,  than  any  person  of  equal  talents  placed  among  Eng- 
lish men  of  letters.  There  could  not  possibly  be  a  more 
complete  justification  of  Macjiecknoe  than  the  victim's 
complaint  that  "he  had  been  represented  as  an  Irish- 
man, though  Dryden  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  had 
only  once  been  in  Ireland,  and  that  was  but  for  a  few 
hours." 

Lastly  has  to  be  noticed  Dryden's  singular  faculty  of 
verse  argument.  He  was,  of  course,  by  no  means  the  first 
didactic  poet  of  talent  in  England.  Sir  John  Davies  is 
usually  mentioned  specially  as  his  forerunner,  and  there 
were  others  who  would  deserve  notice  in  a  critical  history 
of  English  poetry.  But  Dryden's  didactic  poems  are  quite 
unlike  anything  which  came  before  them,  and  have  never 
been  approached  by  anything  that  has  come  after  them. 
Doubtless  they  prove  nothing ;  indeed,  the  chief  of  them. 
The  Hind  and  the  Panther,  is  so  entirely  desultory  that  it 
could  not  prove  anything ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  have 
a  remarkable  air  of  proving  something.  Dryden  had,  in 
reality,  a  considerable  touch  of  the  scholastic  in  his  mind. 
He  delights  at  all  times  in  the  formulas  of  the  schools, 
and  his  various  literary  criticisms  are  frequently  very  fair 
specimens  of  deductive  reasoning.  The  bent  of  his  mind, 
moreover,  was  of  that  peculiar  kind  which  delights  in  ar- 
guing a  point.  Something  of  this  may  be  traced  in  the 
singular  variety,  not  to  say  inconsistency,  even  of  his  liter- 
ary judgments.  He  sees,  for  the  time  being,  only  the  point 
which  he  has  set  himself  to  prove,  and  is  quite  careless  of 
the  fact  that  he  has  proved  something  very  different  yes- 
terday, and  is  very  likely  to  prove  something  different  still 
to-morrow.  But  for  the  purposes  of  didactic  poetry  he 
had  special  equipments  unconnected  with  his  merely  logi- 


80  DRYDEN.  [char 

cal  power.  He  was  at  all  times  singularly  happy  and  fer- 
tile in  the  art  of  illustration,  and  of  concealing  the  weak- 
ness of  an  argument  in  the  most  convincing  way,  by  a 
happy  simile  or  jest.  He  steered  clear  of  the  rock  on 
which  Lucretius  has  more  than  once  gone  nigh  to  split — 
the  repetition  of  dry  formulas  and  professional  terms.  In 
the  Hind  and  Panther,  indeed,  the  argument  is,  in  great 
part,  composed  of  narrative  and  satirical  portraiture.  The 
Fable  of  the  Pigeons,  the  Character  of  the  Buzzard,  and  a 
dozen  more  such  things,  certainly  prove  as  little  as  the 
most  determined  enemy  of  the  belles  lettres  could  wish. 
But  Religio  Laid,  which  is  our  best  English  didactic 
poem,  is  not  open  to  this  charge,  and  is  really  a  very 
good  piece  of  argument.  Weaknesses  here  and  there  are, 
of  course,  adroitly  patched  over  with  ornament,  but  still 
the  whole  possesses  a  very  fair  capacity  of  holding  water. 
Here,  too,  the  peculiar  character  of  Dryden's  poetic  style 
served  him  well.  He  speaks  with  surely  affected  depre- 
ciation of  the  style  of  the  Religio  as  "  unpolished  and 
rugged."  In  reality,  it  is  a  model  of  the  plainer  sort  of 
verse,  and  nearer  to  his  own  admirable  prose  than  anything 
else  that  can  be  cited. 

One  thing  more,  and  a  thing  of  the  greatest  importance, 
has  to  be  said  about  Dryden's  satirical  poems.  There 
never,  perhaps,  was  a  satirist  who  less  abused  his  power  for 
personal  ends.  He  only  attacked  Settle  and  Shadwell  af- 
ter both  had  assailed  him  in  the  most  virulent  and  unpro- 
voked fashion.  Many  of  the  minor  assailants  whom,  as 
we  shall  see,  Absalom  and  Achitopkel  raised  up  against 
him,  he  did  not  so  much  as  notice.  On  the  other  hand, 
no  kind  of  personal  grudge  can  be  traced  in  many  of  his 
most  famous  passages.  The  character  of  Zimri  was  not 
only  perfectly  true  and  just,  but  was  also  a  fair  literary 


IT.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  81 

tit-for-tat  in  return  for  the  Rehearsal ;  nor  did  Bucking- 
ham's foolish  rejoinder  provoke  the  poet  to  say  another 
word.  Last  of  all,  in  no  part  of  his  satires  is  there  the 
slightest  reflection  on  Rochester,  notwithstanding  the  dis- 
graceful conduct  of  which  he  had  been  guilty.  Rochester 
was  dead,  leaving  no  heirs  and  very  few  friends,  so  that  at 
any  time  during  the  twenty  years  which  Dryden  survived 
him  satirical  allusion  would  have  been  safe  and  easy.  But 
Dryden  was  far  too  manly  to  war  with  the  dead,  and  far 
too  manly  even  to  indulge,  as  his  great  follower  did,  in 
vicious  flings  at  the  living. 

Absalom  and  Achitophel  is  perhaps,  with  the  exception 
of  the  St.  Cecilia  ode,  the  best  known  of  all  Dryden's 
poems  to  modern  readers,  and  there  is  no  need  to  give  any 
very  lengthy  account  of  it,  or  of  the  extraordinary  skill 
with  which  Monmouth  is  treated.  The  sketch,  even  now 
.about  the  best  existing  in  prose  or  verse,  of  the  Popish 
Plot,  the  character  and  speeches  of  Achitophel,  the  unap- 
proached  portrait  of  Zimri,  and  the  final  harangue  of 
David,  have  for  generations  found  their  places  in  every 
book  of  elegant  extracts,  either  for  general  or  school  use. 
But  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  passage  of  the  whole, 
as  indicating  the  kind  of  satire  which  Dryden  now  intro- 
duced for  the  first  time,  is  the  passage  descriptive  of 
Shimei — Slingsby  Bethel — the  Republican  sheriff  of  the 
city: 

"  But  he,  though  bad,  is  followed  by  a  worse, 
The  wretch,  who  heaven's  anointed  dared  to  curse ; 
Shimei — whose  youth  did  early  promise  bring 
Of  zeal  to  God,  and  hatred  to  his  King — 
Did  wisely  from  expensive  sins  refrain, 
And  never  broke  the  Sabbath  but  for  gain : 
Nor  ever  was  he  known  an  oath  to  vent, 
Or  curse,  unless  against  the  government. 


82  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

Thus  heaping  wealth,  by  the  most  ready  way 

Among  the  Jews,  which  was  to  cheat  and  pray ; 

The  City,  to  reward  his  pious  hate 

Against  his  master,  chose  him  magistrate. 

His  hand  a  vare  of  justice  did  uphold. 

His  neck  was  loaded  with  a  chain  of  gold. 

During  his  office  treason  was  no  crime, 

The  sons  of  Belial  had  a  glorious  time : 

For  Shimei,  though  not  prodigal  of  pelf. 

Yet  loved  his  wicked  neighbour  as  himself. 

When  two  or  three  were  gathered  to  declaim 

Against  the  monarch  of  Jerusalem, 

Shimei  was  always  in  the  midst  of  them  : 

And,  if  they  cursed  the  King  when  he  was  by. 

Would  rather  curse  than  break  good  company. 

If  any  durst  his  factious  friends  accuse, 

He  packed  a  jury  of  dissenting  Jews, 

Whose  fellow-feeling  in  the  godly  cause 

Would  free  the  suffering  saint  from  human  laws: 

For  laws  are  only  made  to  punish  those 

Who  serve  the  King,  and  to  protect  his  foes. 

If  any  leisure  time  he  had  from  power. 

Because  'tis  sin  to  misemploy  an  hour, 

His  business  was,  by  writing  to  persuade. 

That  kings  were  useless,  and  a  clog  to  trade : 

And  that  his  noble  style  he  might  refine. 

No  Rechabite  more  shunned  the  fumes  of  wine. 

Chaste  were  his  cellars,  and  his  shrieval  board 

The  grossness  of  a  city  feast  abhorred : 

His  cooks  with  long  disuse  their  trade  forgot ; 

Cool  was  his  kitchen,  though  his  brains  were  hot. 

Such  frugal  virtue  malice  may  accuse, 

But  sure  'twas  necessary  to  the  Jews : 

For  towns,  once  burnt,  such  magistrates  require, 

As  dare  not  tempt  God's  providence  by  fire. 

With  spiritual  food  he  fed  his  servants  well, 

But  free  from  flesh,  that  made  the  Jews  rebel : 

And  Moses'  laws  he  held  in  more  account, 

For  forty  days  of  fasting  in  the  mount." 


IV.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  83 

There  had  been  nothing  in  the  least  like  this  before. 
The  prodigality  of  irony,  the  sting  in  the  tail  of  every 
couplet,  the  ingenuity  by  which  the  odious  charges  are 
made  against  the  victim  in  the  very  words  almost  of  the 
phrases  which  his  party  were  accustomed  to  employ,  and 
above  all  the  polish  of  the  language  and  the  verse,  and  the 
tone  of  half -condescending  banter,  were  things  of  which 
that  time  had  no  experience.  The  satire  was  as  bitter  as 
Butler's,  but  less  grotesque  and  less  laboured. 

It  was  not  likely  that  at  a  time  when  pamphlet-writing 
was  the  chief  employment  of  professional  authors,  and 
when  the  public  mind  was  in  the  hottest  state  of  excite- 
ment, such  an  onslaught  as  Absalom  and  Achitophel  should 
remain  unanswered.  In  three  weeks  from  its  appearance 
a  parody,  entitled  Towser  the  Second,  attacking  Dryden, 
was  published,  the  author  of  which  is  said  to  have  been 
Henry  Care.  A  few  days  later  Buckingham  proved, 
with  tolerable  convincingness,  how  small  had  been  his 
own  share  in  the  Rehearsal,  by  putting  forth  some  Po- 
etical Reflections  of  the  dreariest  kind.  Him  followed  an 
anonymous  Nonconformist  with  A  Whip  for  the  FooVs 
Back,  a  performance  which  exposed  his  own  back  to  a 
much  more  serious  flagellation  in  the  preface  to  the 
Medal.  Next  came  Samuel. Pordage's  Azaria  and  Hushai. 
This  work  of  "  Lame  Mephibosheth,  the  wizard's  son,"  is 
weak  enough  in  other  respects,  but  shows  that  Dryden  had 
already  taught  several  of  his  enemies  how  to  write.  Last- 
ly, Settle  published  Absalom  Senior,  perhaps  the  worst  of 
all  the  replies,  though  containing  evidences  of  its  author's 
faculty  for  "rhyming  and  rattling."  Of  these  and  of  sub- 
sequent replies  Scott  has  given  ample  selections,  ample, 
that  is  to  say,  for  the  general  reader.  But  the  student  of 
Dryden  can  hardly  appreciate  his  author  fully,  or  estimate 


84  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

the  debt  which  the  English  language  owes  to  him,  unless 
he  has  read  at  last  some  of  them  in  full. 

The  popularity  of  Absalom  and  Achitopkel  was  immense, 
and  its  sale  rapid ;  but  the  main  object,  the  overthrowing 
of  Shaftesbury,  was  not  accomplished,  and  a  certain  tri- 
umph was  even  gained  for  that  turbulent  leader  by  the  fail- 
ure of  the  prosecution  against  him.  This  failure  was  cele- 
brated by  the  striking  of  a  medal  with  the  legend  Laeta- 
mur.  Thereupon  Dryden  wrote  the  Medal.  A  very 
precise  but  probably  apocryphal  story  is  told  by  Spence 
of  its  origin.  Charles,  he  says,  was  walking  with  Dryden 
in  the  Mall,  and  said  to  him,  "  If  I  were  a  poet,  and  I  think 
I  am  poor  enough  to  be  one,  I  would  write  a  poem  on  such 
a  subject  in  such  a  manner,"  giving  him  at  the  same  time 
hints  for  the  Medal,  which,  when  finished,  was  rewarded 
with  a  hundred  broad  pieces.  The  last  part  of  the  story  is 
not  very  credible,  for  the  king  was  not  extravagant  towards 
literature.  The  first  is  unlikely,  because  he  was,  in  the  first 
place,  too  much  of  a  gentleman  to  reproach  a  man  to  whom 
he  was  speaking  with  the  poverty  of  his  profession ;  and, 
in  the  second,  too  shrewd  not  to  see  that  he  laid  himself 
open  to  a  damaging  repartee.  However,  the  story  is  not 
impossible,  and  that  is  all  that  can  be  said  of  it.  The 
Medal  came  out  in  March,  1682.  It  is  a  much  shorter  and 
a  much  graver  poem  than  Absalom  and  Achitopkel,  extend- 
ing to  little  more  than  300  lines,  and  containing  none  of 
the  picturesque  personalities  which  had  adorned  its  pred- 
ecessor. Part  of  it  is  a  bitter  invective  against  Shaftes- 
bury, part  an  argument  as  to  the  unfitness  of  republican 
institutions  for  England,  and  the  rest  an  *'  Address  to  the 
Whigs,"  as  the  prose  preface  is  almost  exclusively.  The 
language  of  the  poem  is  nervous,  its  versification  less  live- 
ly than  that  of  Absalom  and  Achitopkel,  but  not  less  care- 


IV.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  86 

ful.  It  is  noticeable,  too,  that  the  Medal  contains  a  line 
of  fourteen  syllables, 

"  Thou  leap'st  o'er  all  eternal  truths  in  thy  Pindaric  way." 

The  Alexandrine  was  already  a  favourite  device  of  Dryden's, 
but  he  has  seldom  elsewhere  tried  the  seven-foot  verse  as  a 
variation.  Strange  to  say,  it  is  far  from  inharmonious  in 
its  place,  and  has  a  certain  connexion  with  the  sense,  though 
the  example  certainly  cannot  be  recommended  for  univer- 
sal imitation.  I  cannot  remember  any  instance  in  another 
poet  of  such  a  licence  except  the  well-known  three  in  the 
Revolt  of  Islam,  which  may  be  thought  to  be  covered  by 
Shelley's  prefatory  apology. 

The  direct  challenge  to  the  Whigs  which  the  preface 
contained  was  not  likely  to  go  unanswered ;  and,  indeed, 
Dryden  had  described  in  it  with  exact  irony  the  character 
of  the  replies  he  received.  Pordage  returned  to  the  charge 
with  the  Medal  Reversed ;  the  admirers  of  Somers  hope 
that  he  did  not  write  DryderHs  Satire  to  his  Muse ;  and 
there  were  many  others.  But  one  of  them,  the  Medal  oj 
John  Bayes,  is  of  considerably  greater  importance.  It  was 
written  by  Thomas  Shadwell,  and  is  perhaps  the  most  scur- 
rilous piece  of  ribaldry  which  has  ever  got  itself  quoted  in 
English  literature.  The  author  gives  a  life  of  Dryden,  ac- 
cusing him  pell-mell  of  all  sorts  of  disgraceful  conduct  and 
unfortunate  experiences.  His  adulation  of  Oliver,  his  puri- 
tanic relations,  his  misfortunes  at  Cambridge,  his  marriage, 
his  intrigues  with  Mrs.  Reeve,  <fec.,  &c.,  are  all  raked  up  or 
invented  for  the  purpose  of  throwing  obloquy  on  him. 
The  attack  passed  all  bounds  of  decency,  especially  as  it 
had  not  been  provoked  by  any  personality  towards  Shad- 
well,  and  for  once  Dryden  resolved  to  make  an  example  of 
his  assailant. 


86  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

Thomas  Shadwell  was  a  Norfolk  man,  and  about  ten 
years  Dryden's  junior.  Ever  since  the  year  1668  he  had 
been  writing  plays  (chiefly  comedies)  and  hanging  about 
town,  and  Dryden  and  he  had  been  in  a  manner  friends. 
They  had  joined  Crowne  in  the  task  of  writing  down  the 
Empress  of  Morocco,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  Dryden 
had  ever  given  Shadwell  any  direct  cause  of  offence.  Shad- 
well,  however,  who  was  exceedingly  arrogant,  and  appar- 
ently jealous  of  Dryden's  acknowledged  position  as  leader 
of  the  English  drama,  took  more  than  one  occasion  of  sneer- 
ing at  Dryden,  and  especially  at  his  critical  prefaces.  Not 
long  before  the  actual  declaration  of  war  Shadwell  had  re- 
ceived a  prologue  from  Dryden,  and  the  outbreak  itself  was 
due  to  purely  political  causes,  though  no  doubt  Shadwell, 
who  was  a  sincere  Whig  and  Protestant,  was  very  glad  to 
pour  out  his  pent-up  literary  jealousy  at  the  same  time. 
The  personality  of  his  attack  on  Dryden  was,  however,  in 
the  last  degree  unwise;  for  the  house  in  which  he  lived 
was  of  glass  almost  all  over.  His  manners  are  admitted 
to  have  been  coarse  and  brutal,  his  conversation  unclean, 
his  appearance  uninviting;  nor  was  his  literary  personal- 
ity safer  from  attack.  He  had  taken  Ben  Jonson  for  his 
model,  and  any  reader  of  his  comedies  must  admit  that  he 
had  a  happy  knack  of  detecting  or  imagining  the  oddities 
which,  after  Ben's  example,  he  called  "  humours,"  The 
Sullen  Lovers  is  in  this  way  a  much  more  genuinely  amus- 
ing play  than  any  of  Dryden's,  and  the  Squire  of  Alsatia, 
Bury  Fair,  Epsom  Wells,  the  Virtuoso,  «fec.,  are  comedies 
of  manners  by  no  means  unimportant  for  the  social  history 
of  the  time.  But  whether  it  was  owing  to  haste,  as  Roch- 
ester pretended,  or,  as  Dryden  would  have  it,  to  certain  in- 
tellectual incapacities,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  nobody 
ever  made  less  use  of  his  faculties  than  Shadwell.     His 


IT.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  87 

work  is  always  disgraceful  as  writing;  he  seems  to  have 
been  totally  destitute  of  any  critical  faculty,  and  he  mixes 
up  what  is  really  funny  with  the  dullest  and  most  weari- 
some folly  and  ribaldry.  He  was  thus  given  over  entirely 
into  Dryden's  hands,  and  the  unmatched  satire  of  Mac- 
Fiecknoe  was  the  result. 

Flecknoe,  whom  but  for  this  work  no  one  would  ever 
have  inquired  about,  was,  and  had  been  for  some  time,  a 
stock-subject  for  allusive  satire.  He  was  an  Irish  priest 
who  had  died  not  long  before,  after  writing  a  little  good 
verse  and  a  great  deal  of  bad.  He  had  paid  compliments 
to  Dryden,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Dryden 
had  any  enmity  towards  him  ;  his  part,  indeed,  is  simply 
representative,  and  the  satire  is  reserved  for  Shadwell. 
Well  aa  they  are  known,  the  first  twenty  or  thirty  lines 
of  the  poem  must  be  quoted  once  more,  for  illustration 
of  Dryden's  satirical  faculty  is  hardly  possible  without 
them  : 

"All  human  things  are  subject  to  decay, 
And,  when  fate  summons,  monarchs  must  obey. 
This  Flecknoe  found,  who,  like  Augustus,  young 
Was  called  to  empire,  and  had  governed  long ; 
In  prose  and  verse  was  owned  without  dispute. 
Through  all  the  realms  of  Nonsense,  absolute. 
This  aged  prince,  now  flourishing  in  peace, 
And  blessed  with  issue  of  a  large  increase, 
Worn  out  with  business,  did  at  length  debate 
To  settle  the  succession  of  the  state  ; 
And,  pondering  which  of  all  his  sons  was  fit 
To  reign,  and  wage  immortal  war  with  wit, 
Cried — '  'Tis  resolved  !  for  nature  pleads,  that  he 
Should  only  rule,  who  most  resembles  me. 
Shadwell  alone  my  perfect  image  bears, 
Mature  in  dulness  from  his  tender  years  ; 
Shadwell  alone,  of  all  my  sons,  is  he 


88  DRYDEN.  [chat. 

Who  stands  confirmed  in  full  stupidity. 

The  rest  to  some  faint  meaning  make  pretence, 

But  Shadwell  never  deviates  into  sense. 

Some  beams  of  wit  on  other  souls  may  fall, 

Strike  through  and  make  a  lucid  interval ; 

But  Shadwell's  genuine  night  admits  no  ray, 

His  rising  fogs  prevail  upon  the  day. 

Besides,  his  goodly  fabric  fills  the  eye, 

And  seems  designed  for  thoughtless  majesty ; 

Thoughtless  as  monarch  oaks,  that  shade  the  plain, 

And,  spread  in  solemn  state,  supinely  reign.' " 

MacFlecknoe  was  published  in  October,  1682,  but  Dry- 
den  had  not  done  with  Shadwell.  A  month  later  came 
out  the  second  part  of  Absalom  and  Ackitophel,  in  which 
Nahum  Tate  took  up  the  story.  Tate  copied  the  versifi- 
cation of  his  master  with  a  good  deal  of  success,  though, 
as  it  is  known  that  Dryden  gave  strokes  almost  all  through 
the  poem,  it  is  diflacult  exactly  to  apportion  the  other  lau- 
reate's part.  But  the  second  part  of  Absalom  and  Ackit- 
ophel would  assuredly  never  be  opened  were  it  not  for  a 
long  passage  of  about  200  lines,  which  is  entirely  Dry- 
den's,  and  which  contains  some  of  his  very  best  work. 
Unluckily  it  contains  also  some  of  his  greatest  licences  of 
expression,  to  which  he  was  probably  provoked  by  the  un- 
paralleled language  which,  as  has  been  said,  Shadwell  and 
others  had  used  to  him.  The  200  lines  which  he  gave 
Tate  are  one  string  of  characters,  each  more  savage  and 
more  masterly  than  the  last.  Ferguson,  Forbes,  and  John- 
son are  successively  branded ;  Pordage  has  his  ten  syllables 
of  immortalizing  contempt;  and  then  come  the  famous 
characters  of  Doeg  (Settle)  and  Og  (Shadwell) — 

"  Two  fools  that  crutch  their  feeble  sense  on  verse, 
Who  by  my  muse  to  all  succeeding  times 
Shall  live,  in  spite  of  their  own  doggrel  rhymes." 


iv.l  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  89 

The  coarseness  of  speech  before  alluded  to  makes  it  im- 
possible to  quote  these  characters  as  a  whole,  but  a  cento 
is  fortunately  possible  with  little  loss  of  vigour. 

"  Doeg,  though  without  knowing  how  or  why, 
Made  still  a  blundering  kind  of  melody ; 
Spurred  boldly  on,  and  dashed  through  thick  and  thin, 
Through  sense  and  nonsense,  never  out  nor  in ; 
Free  from  all  meaning,  whether  good  or  bad, 
And,  in  one  word,  heroically  mad. 
He  was  too  warm  on  picking-work  to  dwell, 
But  fagoted  his  notions  as  they  fell. 
And,  if  they  rhymed  and  rattled,  all  was  well. 
Railing  in  other  men  may  be  a  crime. 
But  ought  to  pass  for  mere  instinct  in  him  ; 
Instinct  he  follows,  and  no  farther  knows. 
For,  to  write  verse  with  him  is  to  transproae; 
'Twere  pity  treason  at  his  door  to  lay. 
Who  makes  heaven's  gaie  a  lock  to  its  own  key; 
Let  him  rail  on,  let  his  invective  muse 
Have  four-and-twenty  letters  to  abuse. 
Which,  if  he  jumbles  to  one  line  of  sense. 
Indict  him  of  a  capital  offence. 
In  fire-works  give  him  leave  to  vent  his  spite, 
Those  are  the  only  serpents  he  can  write ; 
The  height  of  his  ambition  is,  we  know. 
But  to  be  master  of  a  puppet-show ; 
On  that  one  stage  his  works  may  yet  appear. 
And  a  month's  harvest  keep  him  all  the  year. 

"  Now  stop  your  noses,  readers,  all  and  some, 
For  here's  a  tun  of  midnight  work  to  come, 
Og  from  a  treason-tavern  rolling  home. 
Round  as  a  globe,  and  liquored  every  chink, 
Goodly  and  great  he  sails  behmd  his  link. 
With  all  this  bulk  there's  nothing  lost  in  Og, 
For  every  inch,  that  is  not  fool,  is  rogue. 
The  midwife  laid  her  hand  on  his  thick  skull. 
With  this  prophetic  blessing — Be  thou  dull ! 
G    6  "^ 


90  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

Drink,  swear,  and  roar ;  forbear  no  lewd  delight 

Fit  for  thy  bulk,  do  anything  but  write. 

Thou  art  of  lasting  make,  like  thoughtless  men, 

A  strong  nativity — but  for  the  pen ; 

Eat  opium,  mingle  arsenic  in  thy  drink, 

Still  thou  mayest  live,  avoiding  pen  and  ink. 

I  see,  I  see,  'tis  counsel  given  in  vain. 

For  treason,  botched  in  rhyme,  will  be  thy  bane ; 

Rhyme  is  the  rock  on  which  thou  art  to  wreck, 

'Tis  fatal  to  thy  fame  and  to  thy  neck. 

Why  should  thy  metre  good  King  David  blast  ? 

A  psalm  of  his  will  surely  be  thy  last. 

A  double  noose  thou  on  thy  neck  dost  pull 

For  writing  treason,  and  for  writing  dull ; 

To  die  for  faction  is  a  common  evil. 

But  to  be  hanged  for  nonsense  is  the  devil. 

Hadst  thou  the  glories  of  thy  king  exprest, 

Thy  praises  had  been  satire  at  the  best ; 

But  thou  in  clumsy  verse,  unlickt,  unpointed, 

Hast  shamefully  defied  the  Lord's  anointed : 

I  will  not  rake  the  dunghill  of  thy  crimes. 

For  who  would  read  thy  life  that  reads  thy  rhymes  ? 

But  of  King  David's  foes,  be  this  the  doom, 

May  all  be  like  the  young  man  Absalom ; 

And  for  my  foes  may  this  their  blessing  be, 

To  talk  like  Doeg,  and  to  write  like  thee." 

No  one,  I  think,  can  fail  to  recognise  here  the  qualities 
which  have  already  been  set  forth  as  specially  distinguish- 
ing Dry  den's  satire,  the  fund  of  truth  at  the  bottom  of  it, 
the  skilful  adjustment  of  the  satire  so  as  to  make  faults  of 
the  merits  which  are  allowed,  the  magnificent  force  and 
variety  of  the  verse,  and  the  constant  maintenance  of  a 
kind  of  superior  contempt  never  degenerating  into  mere 
railing,  or  losing  its  superiority  in  petty  spite.  The  last 
four  verses  in  especial  might  almost  be  taken  as  a  model 
of  satirical  verse. 


IT.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  91 

These  verses  were  the  last  that  Dryden  wrote  in  the 
directly  satirical  way.  His  four  great  poems  —  the  two 
parts  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel,  the  Medal,  and  Mac- 
Flecknoe,  had  been  produced  in  rather  more  than  a  year, 
and,  high  as  was  his  literary  position  before,  had  exalted 
him  infinitely  higher.  From  this  time  forward  there  could 
be  no  doubt  at  all  of  his  position,  with  no  second  at  any 
moderate  distance,  at  the  head  of  living  English  men  of 
letters.  He  was  now  to  earn  a  new  title  to  this  position. 
Almost  simultaneously  with  the  second  part  of  Absalom 
and  Achitophel  appeared  Religio  Laid. 

Scott  has  described  Religio  Laid  as  one  of  the  most 
admirable  poems  in  the  language,  which  in  some  respects 
it  undoubtedly  is ;  but  it  is  also  one  of  the  most  singular. 
That  a  man  who  had  never  previously  displayed  any  par- 
ticular interest  in  theological  questions,  and  who  had  reach- 
ed the  age  of  fifty  -  one,  with  a  reputation  derived,  until 
quite  recently,  in  the  main  from  the  composition  of  loose 
plays,  should  appear  before  his  public  of  pleasure-seekers 
with  a  serious  argument  in  verse  on  the  credibility  of  the 
Christian  religion,  and  the  merits  of  the  Anglican  form 
of  doctrine  and  church  government,  would  nowadays  be 
something  more  than  a  nine  days'  wonder.  In  Dryden's 
time  it  was  somewhat  less  surprising.  The  spirit  of  theo- 
logical controversy  was  bred  in  the  bone  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  It  will  always  remain  an  instance  of  the  subor- 
dination in  Macaulay  of  the  judicial  to  the  advocating  fac- 
ulty, that  he  who  knew  the  time  so  well  should  have  ad- 
duced the  looseness  of  Dryden's  plays  as  an  argument 
against  the  sincerity  of  his  conversion.  It  is  quite  certain 
that  James  the  Second  was  both  a  man  of  loose  life  and 
of  thoroughly  sincere  religious  belief ;  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  his  still  more  profligate  brother's  unbelief  was 


92  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

not  a  mere  assumption,  and  generally  it  may  be  noted  that 
the  biographies  of  the  time  never  seem  to  infer  any  con- 
nexion between  irregularity  of  life  and  unsoundness  of  re- 
ligious faith.  I  have  already  shown  some  cause  for  dis- 
believing the  stories,  or  rather  the  assertions,  of  Dryden's 
profligacy,  though  even  these  would  not  be  conclusive 
against  his  sincerity ;  but  I  believe  that  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  trace  any  very  active  concern  in  him  for  things 
religious  before  the  Popish  Plot,  Various  circumstances 
already  noticed  may  then  have  turned  his  mind  to  the  sub- 
ject, and  that  active  and  vigorous  mind  when  it  once  at- 
tacked a  subject  rarely  deserted  it.  Consistency  was  in  no 
matter  Dryden's  great  characteristic,  and  the  arguments  of 
Religio  Laid  are  not  more  inconsistent  with  the  arguments 
of  The  Hind  and  the  Panther  than  the  handling  of  the 
question  of  rhymed  plays  in  the  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy 
is  with  the  arguments  against  them  in  the  prefaces  and 
dissertations  subsequent  to  Aurengzebe. 

It  has  sometimes  been  sought  to  give  Religio  Laici  a 
political  as  well  as  a  religious  sense,  and  to  connect  it  in 
this  way  with  the  series  of  political  satires,  with  the  Duke 
of  Guise,  and  with  the  subsequent  Hind  and  Panther.  The 
connexion,  however,  seems  to  me  to  be  faint.  The  strug- 
gles of  the  Popish  Plot  had  led  to  the  contests  on  the  Ex- 
clusion Bill  on  the  one  hand,  and  they  had  reopened  the 
controversial  question  between  the  Churches  of  England 
and  Rome  on  the  other.  They  had  thus  in  different  ways 
given  rise  to  Absalom  and  Achitophel  and  to  Religio  Laici, 
but  the  two  poems  have  no  community  but  a  community 
of  origin.  Indeed,  the  suspicion  of  any  political  design 
in  Religio  Laici  is  not  only  groundless  but  contradictory. 
The  views  of  James  on  the  subject  were  known  to  every 
one,  and  those  of  Charles  himself  are  not  likely  to  have 


IT.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  93 

been  wholly  hidden  from  an  assiduous  follower  of  the  court, 
and  a  friend  of  the  king's  greatest  intimates,  like  Dryden. 
Still  less  is  it  necessary  to  take  account  of  the  absurd  sug- 
gestion that  Dryden  wrote  the  poem  as  a  stepping-stone  to 
orders  and  to  ecclesiastical  preferment.  He  has  definitely 
denied  that  he  had  at  any  time  thoughts  of  entering  the 
church,  and  such  thoughts  are  certainly  not  likely  to  have 
occurred  to  him  at  the  age  of  fifty.  The  poem,  therefore, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  must  be  regarded  as  a  genuine  produc- 
tion, expressing  the  author's  first  thoughts  on  a  subject 
which  had  just  presented  itself  to  him  as  interesting  and 
important.  Such  first  thoughts  in  a  mind  like  Dryden's, 
which  was  by  no  means  a  revolutionary  mind,  and  which 
was  disposed  to  accept  the  church  as  part  and  parcel  of 
the  Tory  system  of  principles,  were  pretty  certain  to  take 
the  form  of  an  apologetic  harmonizing  of  difiiculties  and 
doubts.  The  author  must  have  been  familiar  with  the 
usual  objections  of  the  persons  vaguely  called  Hobbists, 
and  with  the  counter  -  objections  of  the  Romanists.  He 
takes  them  both,  and  he  makes  the  best  of  them. 

In  its  form  and  arrangement  Religio  Laid  certainly  de- 
serves the  praise  which  critics  have  given  it.  Dryden's 
overtures  are  very  generally  among  the  happiest  parts  of 
his  poems,  and  the  opening  ten  or  twelve  lines  of  this 
poem  are  among  his  very  best.  The  bold  enjambement  of 
the  first  two  couplets,  with  the  striking  novelty  of  cadence 
given  by  the  sharply  cut  caesura  of  the  third  line,  is  one 
of  his  best  metrical  effects,  and  the  actual  picture  of  the 
cloudy  night-sky  and  the  wandering  traveller  matches  the 
technical  beauty  of  the  verse.  The  rest  of  the  poem  is 
studiously  bare  of  ornament,  and  almost  exclusively  argu- 
mentative. There  is  and  could  be  nothing  specially  novel 
or  extraordinarily  forcible  in  the  arguments ;  but  they  are 


64  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

put  with  that  ease  and  apparent  cogency  which  have  been 
already  remarked  upon  as  characterizing  all  Dryden's  di- 
dactic work.  The  poem  is  not  without  touches  of  humour, 
and  winds  up  with  a  characteristic  but  not  ill-humoured 
fling  at  the  unhappy  Shadwell. 

Dryden's  next  productions  of  importance  were  two  odes 
of  the  so-called  Pindaric  kind.  The  example  of  Cowley 
had  made  this  style  very  popular ;  but  Dryden  himself  had 
not  practised  it.  The  years  1685-6  gave  him  occasion  to 
do  so.  His  Threnodia  Augustalis,  or  funeral  poem  on 
Charles  the  Second,  may  be  taken  as  the  chief  official  pro- 
duction of  his  laureateship.  The  difficulties  of  such  per- 
formances are  well  known,  and  the  reproaches  brought 
against  their  faults  are  pretty  well  stereotyped.  Threno- 
dia Augustalis  is  not  exempt  from  the  faults  of  its  kind ; 
but  it  has  merits  which  for  that  kind  are  decidedly  unu- 
sual. The  stanza  which  so  adroitly  at  once  praises  and 
satirizes  Charles's  patronage  of  literary  men  is  perhaps  the 
best,  and  certainly  the  best  known ;  but  the  termination 
is  also  fine.  Of  very  different  merit,  however,  is  the  Ode 
to  the  Memory  of  Mr^.  Anne  Killegrew.  This  elegy  is 
among  the  best  of  many  noble  funeral  poems  which  Dry- 
den wrote.  The  few  lines  on  the  Marquis  of  Winchester, 
the  incomparable  address  to  Oldham — "  Farewell,  too  little 
and  too  lately  known  " — and  at  a  later  date  the  translated 
epitaph  on  Claverhouse,  are  all  remarkable ;  but  the  Kil- 
legrew elegy  is  of  far  greater  importance.  It  is  curious 
that  in  these  days  of  selections  no  one  has  attempted  a 
collection  of  the  best  regular  and  irregular  odes  in  English. 
There  are  not  many  of  them,  but  a  small  anthology  could 
be  made,  reaching  from  Milton  to  Mr.  Swinburne,  which 
would  contain  some  remarkable  poetry.  Among  these 
the  ode  to  Anne  Killegrew  would  assuredly  hold  a  high 


IV.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  96 

place.  Johnson  pronounced  it  the  noblest  in  the  language, 
and  in  his  time  it  certainly  was,  unless  Lycidas  be  called 
an  ode.  Since  its  time  there  has  been  Wordsworth's  great 
immortality  ode,  and  certain  beautiful  but  fragmentary 
pieces  of  Shelley  which  might  be  so  classed ;  but  till  our 
own  days  nothing  else  which  can  match  this.  The  first 
stanza  may  be  pronounced  absolutely  faultless,  and  inca- 
pable of  improvement.  As  a  piece  of  concerted  music  in 
verse  it  has  not  a  superior,  and  Warton's  depreciation  of  it 
is  a  curious  instance  of  the  lack  of  catholic  taste  which 
has  so  often  marred  English  criticism  of  poetry : 

"  Thou  youngest  virgin-daughter  of  the  skies, 

Made  in  the  last  promotion  of  the  blessed ; 
Whose  palms,  new  plucked  from  Paradise, 
In  spreading  branches  more  sublimely  rise. 

Rich  with  immortal  green  above  the  rest : 
Whether,  adopted  to  some  neighbouring  star, 
Thou  rollest  above  us,  in  thy  wandering  race. 

Or,  in  procession  fixed  and  regular, 

Movest  with  the  heaven's  majestic  pace ; 

Or,  called  to  more  superior  bliss. 
Thou  treadest  with  seraphims  the  vast  abyss : 
Whatever  happy  region  is  thy  place. 
Cease  thy  celestial  song  a  little  space ; 
Thou  wilt  have  time  enough  for  hymns  divine, 

Since  Heaven's  eternal  year  is  thine. 
Hear,  then,  a  mortal  Muse  thy  praise  rehearse, 

In  no  ignoble  verse ; 
But  such  as  thy  own  voice  did  practise  here. 
When  thy  first  fruits  of  Poesy  were  given. 
To  make  thyself  a  welcome  inmate  there ; 

While  yet  a  young  probationer. 
And  candidate  of  heaven." 

These  smaller  pieces  were  followed  at  some  interval  by 
the  remarkable  poem  which  is  Dryden's  chief  work,  if 


9«  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

bulk  and  originality  of  plan  are  taken  into  consideration. 
There  is  a  tradition  as  to  the  place  of  composition  of  The 
Hind  and  the  Panther,  which  in  many  respects  deserves 
to  be  true,  though  there  is  apparently  no  direct  testimo- 
ny to  its  truth.  It  is  said  to  have  been  written  at  Rush- 
ton  not  far  from  Kettering,  in  the  poet's  native  county. 
Rushton  had  been  (though  it  had  passed  from  them  at 
this  time)  the  seat  of  the  Treshams,  one  of  the  staunchest 
families  to  the  old  faith  which  Dryden  had  just  embraced. 
They  had  held  another  seat  in  Northamptonshire — ^Lyve- 
den,  within  a  few  miles  of  Aldwinkle  and  of  all  the  scenes 
of  the  poet's  youth ;  and  both  at  Lyveden  and  Rushton, 
architectural  evidences  of  their  devotion  to  the  cause  sur- 
vive in  the  shape  of  buildings  covered  with  symbolical 
carvings.  The  neighbourhood  of  Rushton,  too,  is  singu- 
larly consonant  to  the  scenery  of  the  poem.  It  lay  just 
on  the  southern  fringe  of  the  great  forest  of  Rocking- 
ham, and  the  neighbourhood  is  still  wonderfully  timbered, 
though  most  of  the  actual  wood  owes  its  existence  to  the 
planting  energy  of  Duke  John  of  Montagu,  half  a  century 
after  Dryden's  time.  It  would  certainly  not  have  been 
easy  to  conceive  a  better  place  for  the  conception  and  ex- 
ecution of  this  sylvan  poem ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
seems  impossible  to  obtain  any  definite  evidence  of  the 
connexion  between  the  two. 

The  Hind  and  the  Panther  is  in  plan  a  sort  of  combina- 
tion of  Absalom  and  Achitophel,  and  of  Religio  Laid,  but 
its  three  parts  are  by  no  means  homogeneous.  The  first 
part,  which  is  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the  best,  contains  the 
well-known  apportionment  of  the  characters  of  different 
beasts  to  the  different  churches  and  sects ;  the  second  con- 
tains the  major  part  of  the  controversy  between  the  Hind 
and  the  Panther ;  the  third,  which  is  as  long  as  the  other 


IV.]  SATIRICAL  AND  DIDACTIC  POEMS.  97 

two  put  together,  continues  this  controversy,  but  before 
very  long  diverges  into  allegorical  and  personal  satire. 
The  story  of  the  Swallows,  which  the  Panther  tells,  is  one 
of  the  liveliest  of  all  Dryden's  pieces  of  narration,  and  it 
is  not  easy  to  give  the  palm  between  it  and  the  Hind's 
retort,  the  famous  fable  of  the  Doves,  in  which  Burnet  is 
caricatured  with  hardly  less  vigour  and  not  much  less  truth 
than  Buckingham  and  Shadwell  in  the  satires  proper. 
This  told,  the  poem  ends  abruptly. 

The  Hind  and  the  Panther  was  certain  to  provoke  con- 
troversy, especially  from  the  circumstances,  presently  to 
be  discussed,  under  which  it  was  written.  Dryden  had 
two  points  especially  vulnerable,  the  one  being  personal, 
the  other  literary.  It  was  inevitable  that  his  argument  in 
Religio  Laid  should  be  contrasted  with  his  argument  in 
The  Hind  and  the  Panther.  It  was  inevitable,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  the  singularities  of  construction  in  the 
latter  poem  should  meet  with  animadversion.  No  de- 
fender of  The  Hind  and  the  Panther,  indeed,  has  ever  at- 
tempted to  defend  it  as  a  regular  or  classically  proportion- 
ed piece  of  work.  Its  main  theme  is,  as  always  with  Dry- 
den, merely  a  canvas  whereon  to  embroider  all  sorts  of 
episodes,  digressions,  and  ornaments.  Yet  his  adversaries, 
in  their  blind  animosity,  went  a  great  deal  too  far  in  the 
matter  of  condemnation,  and  showed  themselves  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  history  and  requirements  of  allegory  in 
general,  and  the  beast -fable  in  particular.  Dryden,  like 
many  other  great  men  of  letters,  had  an  admiration  for 
the  incomparable  story  of  Reynard  the  fox.  It  is  charac- 
teristic, both  of  his  enemies  and  of  the  age,  that  this  was 
made  a  serious  argument  against  him.  This  is  specially 
done  in  a  celebrated  little  pamphlet  which  has  perhaps  had 
the  honour  of  being  more  overpraised  than  anything  else 
5* 


»8  DRYDEN.  [chap.  iv. 

of  its  kind  in  English  literature.  If  any  one  wishes  to 
appraise  the  value  of  the  story  that  Dryden  was  serious- 
ly vexed  by  The  Hind  and  the  Panther  transversed  to  the 
Story  of  the  City  and  Country  Mouse,  he  cannot  do  better 
than  read  that  production.  It  is  diflScult  to  say  what  was 
or  was  not  unworthy  of  Montague,  whose  published  poems 
certainly  do  not  authorize  us  to  say  that  he  wrote  below 
himself  on  this  occasion,  but  it  assuredly  is  in  the  high- 
est degree  unworthy  of  Prior.  Some  tolerable  parody  of 
Dryden's  own  work,  a  good  deal  of  heavy  joking  closely 
modelled  on  the  Rehearsal,  and  assigning  to  Mr.  Bayes 
plenty  of  "  i'gads  "  and  the  like  catchwords,  make  up  the 
staple  of  this  piece,  in  which  Mr.  Christie  has  discovered 
"true  wit,"  and  the  Quarterly  Reviewer  already  cited, 
"  exquisite  satire."  Among  the  severest  of  Messrs.  Mon- 
tague and  Prior's  strictures  is  a  sarcastic  reference  to  Rey- 
nard the  fox.  What  was  good  enough  for  Dryden,  for 
Goethe,  and  for  Mr.  Carlyle  was  childish  rubbish  to  these 
brisk  young  critics.  The  story  alluded  to  says  that  Dry- 
den wept  at  the  attack,  and  complained  that  two  young 
fellows  to  whom  he  had  been  civil  should  thus  have  treated 
an  old  man.  Now  Dryden  certainly  did  not  consider  him- 
self an  old  man  at  this  time,  and  he  had  "  seen  many  others," 
as  an  admirable  Gallicism  has  it,  in  the  matter  of  attacks. 

One  more  poem,  and  one  only,  remains  to  be  noticed  in 
this  division.  This  was  the  luckless  Britannia  Rediviva, 
written  on  the  birth  of  the  most  ill-starred  of  all  Princes 
of  Wales,  born  in  the  purple.  It  is  in  couplets,  and  as  no 
work  of  Dryden's  written  at  this  time  could  be  worthless, 
it  contains  some  vigorous  verse,  but  on  the  whole  it  is  by 
far  the  worst  of  his  serious,  poems ;  and  it  was  no  mis- 
fortune for  his  fame  that  the  Revolution  left  it  out  of 
print  for  the  rest  of  the  author's  life. 


CHAPTER  V. 

LIFE  FROM  1680  TO  1688. 

That  portion  of  Dryden's  life  which  extends  from  the 
Popish  Plot  to  the  Revolution  is  of  so  much  more  impor- 
tance for  the  estimate  of  his  personal  character,  as  well  as 
for  that  of  his  literary  genius,  than  any  other  period  of 
equal  length,  that  it  has  seemed  well  to  devote  a  separate 
chapter  to  the  account  and  discussion  of  it.  The  question 
of  Dryden's  conversion,  its  motives  and  its  sincerity,  has 
of  itself  been  more  discussed  than  any  other  point  in  his 
life,  and  on  the  opinions  to  be  formed  of  it  must  depend 
the  opinion  which,  on  the  whole,  we  form  of  him  as  a 
man.  According  to  one  view  his  conduct  during  these 
years  places  him  among  the  class  which  paradox  delights 
to  describe  as  the  "greatest  and  meanest  of  mankind,"  the 
men  who  compensate  for  the  admirable  qualities  of  their 
heads  by  the  despicable  infirmities  of  their  hearts.  Ac- 
cording to  another,  his  conduct,  if  not  altogether  wise, 
contains  nothing  discreditable  to  him,  and  some  things 
which  may  be  reasonably  described  as  very  much  the  con- 
trary. Twenty  years  of  play-writing  had,  in  all  probabil- 
ity, somewhat  disgusted  Dryden  with  the  stage,  and  his 
Rose-Alley  misfortune  had  shown  him  that  even  a  scrupu- 
lous abstinence  from  meddling  in  politics  or  in  personal 
satire  would  not  save  him  from  awkward  consequences. 


100  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

His  lucrative  contract  with  the  players  had,  beyond  all 
doubt,  ceased,  and  his  oflBcial  salaries,  as  we  shall  see,  were 
paid  with  the  usual  irregularity.  At  the  same  time,  as  has 
been  already  pointed  out,  his  turn  of  thought  probably  led 
him  to  take  more  interest  in  practical  politics  and  in  relig- 
ious controversy  than  had  been  previously  the  case.  The 
additional  pension,  which  as  we  have  seen  he  had  received, 
made  his  nominal  income  suflScient,  and  instead  of  writing 
plays  invitd  Minerva  he  took  to  writing  satires  and  argu- 
mentative pieces  to  please  himself.  Other  crumbs  of  royal 
favour  fell  to  his  lot  from  time  to  time.  The  broad  pieces 
received  for  the  Medal  are  very  probably  apocryphal,  but 
there  is  no  doubt  that  his  youngest  son  received,  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1683,  a  presentation  to  the  Charterhouse  from  the 
king.  This  presentation  it  was  which  he  was  said  to  have 
received  from  Shaftesbury,  as  the  price  of  the  mitigating 
lines  ("  Yet  fame  deserved — easy  of  access  ")  inserted  in 
the  later  edition  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel.  He  was 
also  indefatigable  in  undertaking  and  performing  minor 
literary  work  of  various  kinds,  which  will  be  noticed  later. 
Nor,  indeed,  could  he  afford  to  be  idle ;  his  pensions  were 
often  unpaid,  and  it  is  just  after  the  great  series  of  his 
satires  closed  that  we  get  a  glimpse  of  this  fact.  A  letter 
is  extant  to  Rochester — Hyde,  not  Wilmot — complaining 
of  long  arrears,  and  entreating  some  compensation  in  the 
shape  of  a  place  in  the  Customs,  or  the  Excise,  besides 
an  instalment  at  least  of  the  debt.  It  is  this  letter  which 
contains  the  well-known  phrase,  "  It  is  enough  for  one  age 
to  have  neglected  Mr.  Cowley  and  starved  Mr.  Butler."  As 
far  as  documentary  evidence  goes,  the  answer  to  the  appeal 
was  a  Treasury  warrant  for  75?.,  the  arrears  being  over 
lOOOZ.,  and  an  appointment  to  a  coUectorship  of  Customs 
in  the  port  of  London,  with  unknown  emoluments.     The 


V.J  LITE  FROM  1680  TO  1688.  101 

only  definite  sum  mentioned  is  a  nominal  one  of  5/.  a  year 
as  collector  of  duties  on  cloth.  But  it  is  not  likely  that 
cloth  was  the  only  subject  of  Dryden's  labours,  and  in 
those  days  the  system  of  fees  and  perquisites  flourished. 
This  Customs  appointment  was  given  in  1683. 

To  the  condition  of  Dryden's  sentiments  in  the  last 
years  of  Charles'  reign  Religio  Laid  must  be  taken  as  the 
surest,  and,  indeed,  as  the  only  clue.  There  is  no  proof 
that  this  poem  was  composed  to  serve  any  political  pur- 
pose, and  indeed  it  could  not  have  served  any,  neither 
James  nor  Charles  being  likely  to  be  propitiated  by  a  de- 
fence, however  moderate  and  rationalizing,  of  the  Church 
of  England.  It  is  not  dedicated  to  any  patron,  and  seems 
to  have  been  an  altogether  spontaneous  expression  of  what 
was  passing  in  the  poet's  mind.  A  careful  study  of  the 
poem,  instead  of  furnishing  arguments  against  the  sincer- 
ity of  his  subsequent  conduct,  furnishes,  I  think,  on  the 
contrary,  arguments  which  are  very  strongly  in  its  favour. 
It  could  have,  as  has  just  been  said,  no  purpose  of  pleasing 
a  lay  patron,  for  there  was  none  to  be  pleased  by  it.  It  is 
not  at  all  likely  to  have  commended  itself  to  a  clerical  pa- 
tron, because  of  its  rationalizing  tone,  its  halting  adop- 
tion of  the  Anglican  Church  as  a  kind  of  makeshift,  and  its 
heterodox  yearnings  after  infallibility.  These  last,  indeed, 
are  among  the  most  strongly-marked  features  of  the  piece, 
and  point  most  clearly  in  the  direction  which  the  poet 
afterwards  took. 

"  Such  an  omniscient  church  we  wish  indeed, 
'Twere  worth  both  Testaments,  cast  in  the  Creed," 

is  an  awkward  phrase  for  a  sound  divine,  or  a  dutifully 
acquiescing  layman;  but  it  is  exactly  the  phrase  which 
might  be  expected  from  a  man  who  was  on  the  slope  from 


102  DRYDEN.  [chat. 

placid  caring  for  none  of  these  things  to  a  more  or  less 
fervent  condition  of  membership  of  an  infallible  church. 
The  tenor  of  the  whole  poem,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  the 
same.  The  author,  in  his  character  of  high  Tory  and 
orthodox  Englishman,  endeavours  to  stop  himself  at  the 
point  which  the  AngUcan  Church  marks  with  a  thus  far 
and  no  farther ;  but,  in  a  phrase  which  has  no  exact  Eng- 
lish equivalent,  nous  le  voyons  venir.  It  is  quite  evident 
that  if  he  continues  to  feel  anything  like  a  lively  interest 
in  the  problems  at  stake,  he  will  go  farther  still.  He  did 
go  farther,  and  has  been  accordingly  railed  against  for 
many  generations.  But  I  do  not  hesitate  to  put  the  ques- 
tion to  the  present  generation  in  a  very  concrete  form. 
Is  Dry  den's  critic  nowadays  prepared  to  question  the  sin- 
cerity of  Cardinal  Newman?  If  he  is,  I  have  no  objection 
to  his  questioning  the  sincerity  of  Dryden.  But  what  is 
sauce  for  the  nineteenth-century  goose  is  surely  sauce  for 
the  seventeenth- century  gander.  The  post  -  conversion 
writings  of  the  Cardinal  are  not  less  superficially  incon- 
sistent with  the  Tracts  for  the  Times  and  the  Oxford 
Sermons,  than  the  Hind  and  the  Panther  is  with  Religio 
Laid. 

A  hyperbole  has  been  in  some  sort  necessary  in  order  to 
rebut  the  very  unjust  aspersions  which  two  of  the  most 
popular  historians  of  the  last  thirty  years  have  thrown  on 
Dryden.  But  I  need  hardly  say,  that  though  the  glory  of 
Oxford  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  a  fair 
argumentative  parallel  to  the  glory  of  Cambridge  in  the 
second  half  of  the  seventeenth,  the  comparison  is  not  in- 
tended to  be  forced.  I  believe  Dryden  to  have  been,  in 
the  transactions  of  the  years  1685-7,  thoroughly  sincere 
as  far  as  conscious  sincerity  went,  but  of  a  certain  amount 
of  unconscious  insincerity  I  am  by  no  means  disposed  to 


v.]  LIFE  FROM  1680  TO  1688.  103 

acquit  him.  If  I  judge  his  character  aright,  no  English 
man  of  letters  was  ever  more  thoroughly  susceptible  to 
the  spirit  and  influence  of  his  time.  Dryden  was  essen- 
tially a  literary  man,  and  was  disposed  rather  to  throw 
himself  into  the  arms  of  any  party  than  into  those  of  one 
so  hopelessly  unliterary  as  the  ultra-Liberal  and  ultra-Prot- 
estant party  of  the  seventeenth  century  was.  He  was, 
moreover,  a  professed  servant  of  the  public,  or  as  we  should 
put  it  in  these  days,  he  had  the  jouraalist  spirit.  Fortu- 
nately— and  it  is  for  everybody  who  has  to  do  with  litera- 
ture the  most  fortunate  sign  of  the  times — it  is  not  now 
necessary  for  any  one  to  do  violence  to  a  single  opinion, 
even  to  a  single  crotchet  of  his  own,  in  order  to  make  his 
living  by  his  pen.  It  was  not  so  in  Dryden's  days,  and 
it  is  fully  believable  that  a  sense  that  he  was  about  to  be 
on  the  winning  side  may  have  assisted  his  rapid  determina- 
tion from  Hobbism  or  Halifaxism  to  Romanist  orthodoxy. 
I  am  the  more  disposed  to  this  allowance  because  it  seems 
to  me  that  Dryden's  principal  decrier  was  in  need  of  a 
similar  charity.  Lord  Macaulay  is  at  present  a  glory  of 
the  Whigs.  If  there  had  been  an  equal  opening  when  he 
was  a  young  man  for  distinction  and  profit  as  a  Tory,  for 
early  retirement  on  literary  pursuits  with  a  competence, 
and  for  all  the  other  things  which  he  most  desired,  is  it 
quite  so  certain  that  he  would  not  have  been  of  the  other 
persuasion?  I  have  heard  persons  much  more  qualified 
than  I  am  to  decide  on  the  characteristics  of  pure  Lib- 
eralism energetically  repudiate  Macaulay's  claim  to  be  an 
apostle  thereof.  Yet  I,  for  my  part,  have  not  the  least 
idea  of  challenging  his  sincerity.  It  seems  to  me  that  he 
would  have  been  at  least  wise  if  he  had  refrained,  consid- 
ering the  insuflBciency  of  his  knowledge,  from  challenging 
the  sincerity  of  Dryden. 


104  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

.  How  insuflScient  the  knowledge  was  the  labours  of  sub- 
sequent investigators  have  suflBciently  shown.  Mr.  Bell 
proved  that  the  pension  supposed  to  be  conferred  by 
James  as  a  reward  for  Dryden's  apostasy  was  simply  a  re- 
newal of  the  pension  granted  by  Charles  years  before ;  that 
it  preceded  instead  of  following  the  conversion ;  and  that 
the  sole  reason  of  its  having  to  be  renewed  at  all  was 
technical  merely.  As  for  the  argument  about  Dryden's 
being  previously  indifferent  to  religion,  and  having  written 
indecent  plays,  the  arguer  has  himself  demolished  his  argu- 
ment in  a  famous  passage  about  James's  own  morals,  and 
the  conduct  of  the  non-resistance  doctors  of  the  Anglican 
Church.  Burnet's  exaggerated  denunciations  of  Dry  den 
as  a  "  monster  of  impurity  of  all  sorts,"  &c.,  are  suflBciently 
traceable  to  Shadwell's  shameless  libels  and  to  the  Char- 
acter of  the  Buzzard.  It  is  true  that  the  allegations  of 
Malone  and  Scott,  to  the  effect  that  Lady  Elizabeth  had 
been  already  converted,  and  Charles  Dryden  likewise,  rest 
on  a  very  slender  foundation ;  but  these  are  matters  which 
have  very  little  to  do  with  the  question  in  any  case.  The 
real  problem  can  be  very  easily  stated.  Given  a  man  to 
the  general  rectitude  of  whose  private  conduct  all  quali- 
fied witnesses  testify,  while  it  is  only  questioned  by  un- 
scrupulous libellers  —  who  gained,  as  can  be  proved,  not 
one  penny  by  his  conversion,  and  though  he  subsequently 
lost  heavily  by  it,  maintained  it  unswervingly — who  can 
be  shown,  from  the  most  unbiassed  of  his  previous  writ- 
ings, to  have  been  in  exactly  the  state  of  mind  which  was 
likely  to  result  in  such  a  proceeding,  and  of  whose  insin- 
cerity there  is  no  proof  of  the  smallest  value — what  rea- 
son is  there  for  suspecting  him?  The  literary  greatness 
of  the  man  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question.  The 
fact  is  that  he  has  been  convicted,  or  rather  sentenced,  on 


T.]  LIFE  FROM  1680  TO  1688.  105 

evidence  which  would  not  suflSce  to  convict  Elkanah  Settle 
or  Samuel  Pordage. 

In  particular,  we  have  a  right  to  insist  upon  the  absolute 
consistency  of  Dryden's  subsequent  conduct.  Mr.  Christie, 
who,  admirably  as  for  the  most  part  he  judges  Dryden's 
literary  work,  was  steeled  against  his  personal  character 
by  the  fact  that  Dryden  attacked  his  idol,  Shaftesbury, 
thinks  that  a  recantation  would  have  done  him  no  good 
had  he  tried  it.  The  opinion  is,  to  say  the  least,  hasty. 
Had  Dryden  proffered  the  oaths  to  William  and  Mary,  as 
poet  laureate  and  historiographer,  it  is  very  hard  to  see 
what  power  could  have  deprived  him  of  his  two  hundred 
a  year.  The  extra  hundred  of  pension  might  have  been 
forfeited,  but  the  revenues  of  these  places  and  of  that  in 
the  Customs  must  have  been  safe,  unless  the  new  Govern- 
ment chose  to  incur  what  it  was  of  all  things  desirous  to 
prevent,  the  charge  of  persecution  and  intolerance.  When 
the  Whigs  were  so  desperately  hard  up  for  literary  talent 
that  Dorset,  in  presenting  Shadwell  for  the  laureateship, 
had  to  pay  him  the  very  left-handed  compliment  of  say- 
ing that,  if  he  was  not  the  best  poet,  he  was  at  least  the 
honestest — i.  e.,  the  most  orthodoxly  Whiggish — man,  when 
hardly  a  single  distinguished  man  of  letters  save  Locke, 
who  was  nothing  of  a  pamphleteer,  was  on  their  side,  is 
it  to  be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  Dryden  would  not 
have  been  welcome  ?  The  argument  against  him  recalls  a 
curious  and  honourable  story  which  Johnson  tells  of  Smith, 
the  Bohemian  author  of  Phcedra  and  Hippolytus.  Addi- 
son, who,  as  all  the  world  knows,  was  a  friend  of  Smith's, 
and  who  was  always  ready  to  do  his  friends  good  turns, 
procured  for  Smith,  from  some  Whig  magnates,  a  commis- 
sion for  a  History  of  the  Revolution.     To  the  disgust  of 

the  mediator.  Smith  demurred.     '*  What,"  he  said,  "  am  I 
H  8 


106  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

to  do  with  the  character  of  Lord  Sunderland  ?"  Addison 
is  said  to  have  replied,  in  deep  but  illogical  wrath, "  When 
were  you  drunt  last?"  I  feel  extremely  inclined  to  put 
Smith's  query  to  the  persons  who  maintain  that  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  Dryden  to  turn  his  coat  at  the 
Revolution.  What  are  they  going  to  do  with  the  charac- 
ter of  Lord  Sunderland?  In  the  age  not  merely  of  Sun- 
derland, but  of  Marlborough,  of  Godolphin,  of  Russell,  of 
a  hundred  other  treble-dyed  traitors,  it  surely  cannot  be 
contended  that  the  first  living  writer  of  English  would 
have  been  rejected  by  those  who  had  need  of  his  services. 
Now  we  know  that,  so  far  from  making  any  overtures  of 
submission,  Dryden  was  stiff  in  his  Jacobitism  and  in  his 
faith.  Nothing  in  his  life  is  more  celebrated  than  his  per- 
sistent refusal  to  give  way  to  Tonson's  entreaties  to  dedi- 
cate the  Virgil  to  William,  and  his  whole  post-Revolution 
works  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  a  single  stroke  intended 
to  curry  favour  with  the  powers  that  were.  If,  as  he  puts 
it  in  a  letter  still  extant,  they  would  take  him  on  his  lit- 
erary merits,  he  would  not  refuse  their  offers ;  but  as  to 
yielding  an  inch  of  his  principles,  he  would  not.  And  his 
works  amply  justify  the  brave  words.  It  is  surely  hard 
measure  to  go  out  of  one's  way  to  upbraid  with  wanton 
or  venal  apostasy  one  to  whose  sincerity  there  is  such 
complete  testimony,  both  a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  as  this. 
Except  the  Hind  and  the  Panther,  no  work  inspired  by 
his  new  religious  sentiments  did  Dryden  much  credit,  or, 
it  would  appear,  brought  him  much  profit.  James  was  not 
a  particularly  generous  master,  though  it  is  probable  that 
the  laureate -historiographer -collector  received  his  dues 
much  more  punctually  under  his  orderly  administration 
than  in  the  days  of  his  spendthrift  brother.  The  works 
upon  which  the  court  put  Dryden  were  not  very  happily 


T.J  LIFE  FROM  1680  TO  1688.  107 

chosen,  nor  in  all  cases  very  happily  executed.  His  defence 
of  the  reasons  which  had  converted  Anne  Hyde  is  about 
the  worst  of  his  prose  works,  and  was  handled  (in  the 
rough  controversial  fashion  of  the  day)  very  damagingly 
by  Stillingfleet.  A  translation  of  a  work  of  Varillas'  on 
ecclesiastical  histoiy  was  announced  but  never  published ; 
and,  considering  the  worthlessness  of  Varillas  as  a  histori- 
an, it  is  just  as  well.  The  Life  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  dedi- 
cated to  the  queen,  was  better  worth  doing,  and  was  well 
done.  It  is  curious  that  in  this  dedication  occurs  one  of 
those  confident  anticipations  of  the  birth  of  the  young 
Pretender,  which  after  the  event  were  used  by  zealous 
Protestants  as  arguments  for  the  spuriousness  of  the  child. 
These  and  minor  works  show  that  Dryden,  as  indeed  might 
be  expected,  was  in  favour  at  court,  and  was  made  use  of 
by  the  economical  and  pious  rulers  of  England.  But  of 
any  particular  benefit  reaped  by  him  from  his  conversion 
there  is  no  hint  whatever ;  in  some  respects,  indeed,  it  did 
him  harm.  His  two  youngest  sons,  who  had  followed  their 
father's  change  of  faith,  were  elected  about  this  time  to 
scholarships  at  the  universities,  but  were  prevented,  appar- 
ently by  their  religion,  from  going  into  residence. 

The  mere  loss  of  education  and  prospects  for  his  children 
was,  however,  a  trifle  to  what  Dryden  had  to  undergo  at 
the  Revolution.  It  is  probable  that  this  event  was  almost 
as  much  a  surprise  to  him  as  to  James  himself.  But  how- 
ever severe  the  blow  might  be,  it  was  steadily  home.  The 
period  at  which  the  oaths  had  to  be  taken  to  the  new 
Government  came,  and  Dryden  did  not  take  them.  This 
vacated  at  once  his  literary  posts  and  his  place  in  the  Cus- 
toms, if,  as  there  seems  every  reason  to  believe,  he  held  it 
up  to  the  time.  His  position  was  now  exceedingly  serious. 
He  was  nearly  sixty  years  of  age.      His  patrimony  was 


108  DRTDEN.  [chap. 

but  small,  and  such  addition  to  it  as  he  had  received  with 
Lady  Elizabeth  did  not  exceed  a  few  scores  of  pounds  an- 
nually. He  had  three  sons  grown  to  man's  estate,  and  all 
the  more  difiBcult  to  provide  for  that  their  religion  inca- 
pacitated them  from  almost  every  profitable  pursuit  in  their 
native  country.  He  himself  had  long,  save  in  one  trifling 
instance,  broken  his  relation  with  the  stage,  the  most  lu- 
crative opening  for  literary  work.  He  was  a  marked  man, 
far  more  obnoxious  personally  to  many  of  the  ruling  party 
than  Milton  had  been  thirty  years  before,  when  he  thought 
it  necessary  to  go  into  "  abscondence."  The  very  gains  of 
the  theatre  were  not  what  they  had  been,  unless  they  were 
enhanced  by  assiduous  visits  to  patrons  and  dedicatees,  a 
degrading  performance  to  which  Dryden  never  would  con- 
sent. Loss  of  fortune,  of  prospects,  and  of  powerful  friends 
was  accompanied  in  Dryden's  case  by  the  most  galling  an- 
noyances to  his  self-love.  His  successor  in  the  laureateship 
was  none  other  than  Shadwell,  whom  he  had  so  bitterly 
satirized,  whom  he  had  justly  enough  declared  able  to  do 
anything  but  write,  and  who  was  certain  to  exult  over 
him  with  all  the  triumph  of  a  coarse  and  vindictive  nature. 
Dryden,  however,  came  out  of  the  trial  admirably.  He  had, 
indeed,  some  staunch  friends  in  both  political  parties — the 
Dorsets  and  the  Leveson-Gowers  being  as  true  to  him  as 
the  Rochesters  and  the  Ormonds.  But  his  main  resource 
now,  as  all  through  his  life,  was  his  incomparable  literary 
faculty,  his  splendid  capacity  for  work,  and  his  dogged  op- 
position to  the  assaults  of  fortune.  In  the  twelve  years 
of  life  which  remained  to  him  he  built  up  his  fortune  and 
maintained  it  anew,  not  merely  by  assiduous  practice  of 
those  forms  of  literature  in  which  he  had  already  won 
renown,  but  by  exercising  yet  again  his  marvellous  talent 
for  guessing  the  taste  of  the  time,  and  striking  out  new 


v.]  LIFE  FROM  1680  TO  1688.  109 

lines  to  please  it.  Just  as  no  one  from  Annus  Mirahilis 
and  Aurengzebe  could  have  divined  Absalom  and  Achito- 
phel  and  the  Hind  and  the  Panther,  so  no  one,  except  on 
the  principle  that  all  things  were  now  possible  to  Dryden, 
could  have  divined  from  Absalom  and  Achitophel  and  the 
Hind  and  the  Panther  either  Palamon  and  Arcite  or  the 
translation  of  Virgil. 

Some  minor  works  of  Dryden's  not  mentioned  in  the 
last  chapter,  nor  falling  under  the  heads  to  be  noticed  in 
subsequent  chapters,  may  here  deserve  notice.  Some  time 
or  other  in  the  reign  of  James  the  Second,  Dryden  wrote 
to  Etherege  a  poetical  epistle,  which  is  its  author's  only 
attempt  in  the  easy  octosyllabic  verse,  which  Butler  had 
just  used  with  such  brilliant  success,  and  whieh  Prioi-  was 
in  a  more  polished  if  less  vigorous  form  to  use  with  suc- 
cess almost  equally  brilliant  a  few  years  later.  "  Gentle 
George"  Etherege  deserved  the  compliments  which  Dry- 
den paid  him  more  than  once,  afid  it  is  only  to  be  wished 
that  the  poet's  communications  with  him,  whether  in  verse 
or  prose,  had  been  more  frequent.  Had  they  been  so,  we 
might  have  been  able  to  solve  what  is  now  one  of  the 
most  curious  problems  of  English  literary  history.  Though 
Etherege  was  a  man  of  fashion,  of  literary  importance,  and 
of  a  distinguished  position  in  diplomacy — he  was  English 
minister  at  Ratisbon,  where  Dryden  addresses  him — only 
the  circumstances  and  not  the  date  of  his  death  are  known. 
It  is  said  that  in  seeing  his  friends  downstairs  he  over- 
balanced himself  and  was  taken  up  dead;  but  when  this 
happened  no  one  seems  to  know.*     A  line  in  the  epistle 

'  In  reply  to  a  request  of  mine,  Mr.W.  Noel  Sainabury  has  brought 
to  my  notice  letters  of  Etherege  in  the  Record  Office  and  in  the  Re- 
ports of  the  Historical  MSS.  Commission.  In  January,  1688-9,  Ethe- 
rege wrote  to  Lord  Preston  from  Ratisbon.    The  first  letter  from  luf 


110  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

seems  to  show  that  Etherege  had  been  obliged  to  take  to 
heavy  drinking  as  a  compliment  to  his  German  friends, 
and  thus  indirectly  prophesies  the  circumstances  of  his 
death.  But  the  author  or  Sir  Fopling  Flutter  and  She 
would  if  she  could  hardly  deserved  such  a  hugger-mugger 
end. 

To  this  time,  too,  belongs  the  first  Ode  on  St.  Cecilia's 
Day.  It  is  not  a  great  production,  and  cannot  pretend 
comparison  with  the  second  and  more  famous  piece  com- 
posed on  a  later  occasion.  But  it  is  curious  how  many 
lines  and  phrases  it  has  contributed  to  the  list  of  stock 
quotations — especially  curious  when  it  is  remembered  that 
the  whole  piece  is  only  sixty-three  lines  long.  "A  heap 
of  jarring  atoms,"  "the  diapason  closing  full  in  man," 
*'  the  double,  double,  double  beat  of  the  thundering  drum," 
and  several  other  phrases,  survive.  The  thing  was  set  to 
music  by  an  Italian  composer  named  Draghi,  and  seems 
to  have  been  popular.  Besides  these  and  other  tasks.  Dry- 
den  began  at  this  time  a  curious  work  or  series  of  works, 
which  was  continued  at  intervals  till  his  death,  which  was 
imitated  afterwards  by  many  others,  and  which  in  some 
sort  was  an  ancestor  of  the  modern  literary  magazine  or 
review.  This  was  the  Miscellany,  the  first  volume  of  which 
appeared  in  the  beginning  of  1684,  and  the  second  in  the 
beginning  of  1685,  though  a  considerable  interval  occur- 
red before  a  third  volume  was  brought  out.  These  vol- 
umes contained  both  old  and  new  poems,  mostly  of  the 
occasional  kind,  by  Dryden  himself,  besides  many  of  his 

successor  is  dated  April,  1689.  If,  then,  he  died  at  Ratisbon,  this 
brings  the  date  between  narrow  limits.  There  is,  however,  a  rival 
legend  that  he  followed  James  into  exile.  Since  this  note  was  writ- 
ten more  letters  have,  I  hear,  been  found  in  the  British  Museum,  and 
Mr.  Gosse  has  the  whole  subject  under  treatment. 


v.]  LIFE  FROM  1680  TO  1688.  Ill 

translations.  But  they  were  by  no  means  liu.lted  to  his 
own  productions.  Many  other  authors,  old  and  new,  were 
admitted,  and  to  the  second  volume  Charles  Dryden,  his 
eldest  son,  was  a  contributor.  These  two  years  (1684  and 
1685),  it  will  be  observed,  were  not  merely  those  in  which, 
owing  to  the  non-payment  of  his  appointments,  his  pe- 
cuniary straits  must  have  been  considerable,  but  they  were 
also  years  in  which  there  was  a  kind  of  lull  between  the 
rapid  series  of  his  great  satirical  works  and  the  collection 
of  verse  and  prose  productions  which  owe  their  birth  to 
his  conversion.  It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  Dry- 
den's  abstinence  from  the  stage  during  this  time — which 
was  broken  only  by  the  Duke  of  Guise  and  by  the  pro- 
duction of  the  rather  unsuccessful  opera,  Albion  and  Alba- 
nius — seems  to  have  been  accompanied  by  a  cessation  also 
in  his  activity  as  a  prologue  writer.  Both  before  and  af- 
ter this  period  prologue  writing  was  a  regular  source  of 
income  and  employment  to  him.  There  is  a  famous  story 
of  Southern  and  Dryden  which  is  often  quoted,  both  for 
its  intrinsic  interest,  and  because  the  variety  with  which 
its  circumstances  are  related  is  rather  an  instructive  com- 
ment on  the  trustworthiness  of  such  stories.  Every  one 
is  supposed  to  know  Pope's  reference  to  the  author  of 
Oroonoko  as — 

"  Tom,  whom  heaven  sent  down  to  raise 
The  price  of  prologues  and  of  plays." 

The  story  is  that  Southern  in  1682  applied  to  Dryden 
for  a  prologue  (which  is  extant),  and  was  told  that  the 
tariff  had  gone  up  from  two  guineas  to  three — "  Not  out 
of  any  disrespect  to  you,  young  man,  but  the  players  have 
had  my  goods  too  cheap."  The  figures  two  and  three  are 
replaced  in  some  versions  by  four  and  six,  in  others  by 


112  DRYDEN.  fcHAP.v. 

five  and  ten.  This  story  gives  the  date  of  1682,  and  it  is 
remarkable  that  until  1690,  when  Dry  den  once  more  came 
on  the  stage  himself  with  a  new  play,  his  prologues  and 
epilogues  are  very  few.  Possibly  the  increased  price  was 
prohibitive,  but  it  is  more  likely  that  the  political  strug- 
gles of  the  time  put  all  but  political  verse  out  of  fashion. 
These  compositions  had  always  been  famous,  or  rather  in- 
famous, for  their  licence  of  language,  and  the  political  ex- 
cesses of  some  of  Dry  den's  few  utterances  of  the  kind  at 
this  time  are  not  creditable  to  his  memory.  Hallam's 
phrase  of  "  virulent  ribaldry  "  is  absurd  as  applied  to  Ab- 
salom and  Ackitophel,  or  to  the  Medal.  It  is  only  too 
well  in  place  as  applied  to  the  stuff  put  in  the  mouth  of 
the  actress  who  spoke  the  epilogue  to  the  Duke  of  Guise. 
The  truth  is  that  if  they  be  taken  as  a  whole  these  prol- 
ogues and  epilogues  could  be  better  spared  by  lovers  of 
Dryden  from  his  works  than  any  other  section  thereof; 
and  it  is  particularly  to  be  regretted  that  Mr.  Christie,  in 
his  excellent  Globe  edition  of  the  poems,  has  admitted 
them,  while  excluding  the  always  melodious,  and  some- 
times exquisitely  poetical  songs  from  the  plays,  which  cer« 
tainly  do  not  exceed  the  prologues  in  licence  of  language, 
while  their  literary  merit  is  incomparably  greater. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LATER    DRAMAS    AND    PROSE    WORKS. 

It  might  have  seemed,  at  first  sight,  that  the  Revolution 
would  be  a  fatal  blow  to  Dryden.  Being  unwilling  to 
take  the  oaths  to  the  new  Government,  he  lost  at  once  the 
places  and  the  pensions  which,  irregularly  as  they  had  been 
paid,  had  made  up,  since  he  ceased  to  write  constantly  for 
the  stage,  by  far  the  greater  part  of  his  income.  He  was 
nearly  sixty  years  old,  his  private  fortune  was,  if  not  al- 
together insignificant,  quite  insuflBcient  for  his  wants,  and 
he  had  three  sons  to  maintain  and  set  out  in  the  world. 
But  he  faced  the  ruin  of  his  fortunes,  and,  what  must  have 
been  bitterer  to  him,  the  promotion  of  his  enemies  into  his 
own  place,  with  the  steady  courage  and  practical  spirit  of 
resource  which  were  among  his  most  creditable  character- 
istics. Not  all  his  friends  deserted  him,  and  from  Dor- 
set in  particular  he  received  great  and  apparently  constant 
assistance.  The  story  that  this  generous  patron  actually 
compensated  Dryden  by  an  annuity  equal  in  value  to  his 
former  appointments  seems  to  rest  on  insufficient  founda- 
tion. The  story  that  when  Dryden  and  Tom  Brown  dined 
with  Dorset  the  one  found  a  hundred-pound  note  and  the 
other  a  fifty-pound  note  under  his  cover,  does  not  do  much 
credit  to  Dorset's  powers  of  literary  arithmetic,  nor,  even 
allowing  for  the  simpler  manners  of  the  time,  to  his  deli- 
6 


114  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

cacy  of  feeling.  But  Dryden's  own  words  are  explicit  on 
the  point  of  his  having  received  assistance  from  this  old 
friend,  and  it  is  said  that  in  certain  letters  preserved  at 
Knole,  and  not  yet  given  to  the  world,  there  are  still  more 
definite  acknowledgments.  Dryden,  however,  was  never 
disposed  to  depend  on  patrons,  even  though,  like  Corneille, 
he  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  refuse  their  gifts  when 
they  presented  themselves.  Theatrical  gains  had,  it  has 
been  said,  decreased,  unless  dramatists  took  pains  to  in- 
crease them  by  dedication  or  by  the  growing  practice  of 
placing  subscription  copies  among  wealthy  friends.  Still, 
a  hundred  pounds  could  be  depended  upon  from  a  good 
third  night  and  from  the  bookseller's  fee  for  the  book, 
and  a  hundred  pounds  was  a  matter  of  considerable  im- 
portance to  Dryden  just  now.  For  full  seven  years  he 
had  all  but  abandoned  dramatic  composition.  His  con- 
tributions to  Lee's  Duke  of  Guise,  which  probably  brought 
him  no  money,  and  certainly  brought  him  a  troublesome 
controversy,  and  the  opera  of  Albion  and  Alhanius  had 
been  his  only  attempts  on  the  stage  since  the  Spanish 
Friar.  The  Duke  of  Guise,  though  Dryden's  part  in  it  is 
of  no  little  merit,  hardly  needs  notice  here,  and  Albion  and 
Albanius  was  a  failure.  It  was  rather  a  masque  than  an 
opera,  and  depended,  though  there  is  some  good  verse  in 
it,  rather  on  elaborate  and  spiteful  gibbeting  of  the  ene- 
mies of  the  court  than  on  poetical  or  dramatic  merits. 
But  Dryden's  dramatic  reputation  was  by  no  means  im- 
paired. The  first  play  ordered  to  be  performed  by  Queen 
Mary  was  the  Spanish  Friar,  and  this  Protestant  drama 
proved  a  most  unfortunate  one  for  her  Majesty ;  for  the 
audience  at  that  time  were  extraordinarily  quick  to  seize 
any  kind  of  political  allusion,  and,  as  it  happened,  there 
were  in  the  Spanish  Friar  many  allusions  of  an  acciden- 


VI.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  115 

tal  but  unmistakable  kind  to  ungrateful  children,  banished 
monarchs,  and  so  forth.  The  eyes  of  the  whole  audience 
were  fixed  on  Mary,  and  she  probably  repented  of  her  choice. 
But  Dry  den  did  not  long  depend  on  revivals  of  liis  old 
plays.  The  second  year  of  the  new  regime  saw  the  pro- 
duction of  Don  Sebastian,  a  tragi-comedy,  one  scene  of 
which,  that  between  Sebastian  and  Dorax,  is  famous  in 
literature,  and  which  as  a  whole  is  often  ranked  above  all 
Dryden's  other  dramas,  though  for  my  own  part  I  prefer 
All  for  Love.  The  play,  though  at  first  received  with  a 
certain  lukewarmness,  which  may  have  been  due  to  vari- 
ous causes,  soon  became  very  popular.  It  was  dedicated 
to  Lord  Leicester,  Algernon  Sidney's  eldest  brother,  a  very 
old  man,  who  was  probably  almost  alone  among  his  con- 
temporaries (with  the  exception  of  Dryden  himself)  in  be- 
ing an  ardent  admirer  of  Chaucer.  In  the  preface  to  the 
Fables  the  poet  tells  us  that  he  had  postponed  his  transla- 
tion of  the  elder  bard  out  of  deference  to  Lord  Leicester's 
strongly  expressed  opinion  that  the  text  should  be  left 
alone.  In  the  same  year  was  produced  a  play  less  origi- 
nal, but  perhaps  almost  better,  and  certainly  more  popular. 
This  was  Amphitryon,  which  some  critics  have  treated 
most  mistakenly  as  a  mere  translation  of  Moliere.  The 
truth  is,  that  the  three  plays  of  Plautus,  Moliere,  and  Dry- 
den are  remarkable  examples  of  the  power  which  great 
writers  have  of  treading  in  each  other's  steps  without  ser- 
vile imitation.  In  a  certain  dry  humour  Dryden's  play 
is  inferior  to  Plautus,  but,  as  compared  with  Moliere,  it 
has  two  features  which  are  decided  improvements — the 
introduction  of  the  character  of  Judge  Gripus  and  the 
separation  of  the  part  of  the  Soubrette  into  two.  As  Don 
Sebastian  had  been  dedicated  to  Lord  Leicester,  an  old 
Cromwellian,  so  Amphitryon  was  dedicated  to  Sir  William 


lie  DRYDEN.  [CHAF. 

Leveson  Gower,  a  prominent  Williamite.  Neither  dedica- 
tion contains  the  least  truckling  to  the  powers  that  were, 
but  Dryden  seems  to  have  taken  a  pleasure  in  showing 
that  men  of  both  parties  were  sensible  of  his  merit  and  of 
the  hardship  of  his  position.  Besides  these  two  plays  an 
alteration  of  The  Prophetess  was  produced  in  1690,  in 
which  Dryden  is  said  to  have  assisted  Betterton.  In  1691 
appeared  King  Arthur,  a  masque-opera  on  the  plan  of  Al- 
bion and  Alhanius.  Unlike  the  latter,  it  has  no  political 
meaning;  indeed,  Dryden  confesses  to  having  made  con- 
siderable alterations  in  it,  in  order  to  make  it  non-political. 
The  former  piece  had  been  set  by  a  Frenchman,  Grabut, 
and  the  music  had  been  little  thought  of.  Purcell  under- 
took the  music  for  King  Arthur  with  much  better  success. 
Allowing  for  a  certain  absurdity  which  always  besets  the 
musical  drama,  and  which  is  particularly  apparent  in  that 
of  the  late  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  century.  King 
Arthur  is  a  very  good  piece ;  the  character  of  Emmeline 
is  attractive,  the  supernatural  part  is  managed  with  a  skill 
which  would  have  been  almost  proof  against  the  wits  of 
the  Rehearsal,  and  many  of  the  lyrics  are  excellent.  Dry- 
den was  less  fortunate  with  his  two  remaining  dramas. 
In  writing  the  first,  he  showed  himself,  for  so  old  a  crafts- 
man and  courtier,  very  unskilful  in  the  choice  of  a  sub- 
ject. Cleomenes,  the  banished  King  of  Sparta,  could  not 
but  awaken  the  susceptibilities  of  zealous  revolution  cen- 
sors. After  some  diflSculties,  in  which  Laurence  Hyde 
once  more  did  Dryden  a  good  turn,  the  piece  was  licensed, 
but  it  was  not  very  successful.  It  contains  some  fine  pas- 
sages, but  the  most  remarkable  thing  about  it  is  that  there 
is  a  considerable  relapse  into  rhyme,  which  Dryden  had 
abandoned  for  many  years.  It  contains,  also,  one  of  the 
last,  not  the  least  beautiful,  and  fortunately  almost  the 


Ti.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  IIY 

most  qnotable  of  the  exquisite  lyrics  which,  while  they 
prove,  perhaps,  more  fully  than  anything  else,  Dryden's  al- 
most unrivalled  command  of  versification,  disprove  at  the 
same  time  his  alleged  incapacity  to  express  true  feeling. 
Here  it  is : 

"  No,  no,  poor  suffering  heart,  no  change  endeavour, 
ChooBC  to  sustain  the  smart,  rather  than  leave  her ; 
My  ravished  eyes  behold  such  charms  about  her, 
I  can  die  with  her,  but  not  live  without  her ; 
One  tender  sigh  of  hers  to  see  me  languish. 
Will  more  than  pay  the  price  of  my  past  anguish : 
Beware,  0  cruel  fair,  how  you  smile  on  me, 
'Twas  a  kind  look  of  yours  that  has  undone  me. 

"  Love  has  in  store  for  me  one  happy  minute. 
And  she  will  end  my  pain  who  did  begin  it ; 
Then  no  day  void  of  bliss,  of  pleasure,  leaving. 
Ages  shall  shde  away  without  perceiving : 
Cupid  shall  guard  the  door,  the  more  to  please  us, 
And  keep  out  time  and  death,  when  they  would  seize  us : 
Time  and  death  shall  depart,  and  say,  in  flying, 
Love  has  foimd  out  a  way  to  live  by  dying." 

Last  of  all  the  long  list  came  Love  Triumphant,  a  tragi- 
comedy, in  1694,  which  failed  completely;  why,  it  is  not 
very  easy  to  say.  It  is  probable  that  these  four  plays  and 
the  opera  did  not  by  any  means  requite  Dryden  for  his 
trouble  in  writing  them.  The  average  literary  worth  of 
them  is,  however,  superior  to  that  of  his  earlier  dramas. 
The  remarkable  thing,  indeed,  about  this  portion  of  his 
work  is  not  that  it  is  not  better,  but  that  it  is  so  good. 
He  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  had  la  tete  dramatique, 
and  yet  in  the  Conquest  of  Granada,  in  Marriage  a  la 
Mode,  in  Aurengzebe,  in  All  for  Love,  in  the  Spanish 
Friar,  in  Don  Sebastian,  and  in  Amphitryon  he  produced 


118  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

plays  which  are  certainly  worthy  of  no  little  admiration. 
For  the  rest,  save  in  isolated  scenes  and  characters,  little 
can  be  said,  and  even  those  just  specified  have  to  be  praised 
with  not  a  little  allowance. 

Nevertheless,  great  as  are  the  drawbacks  of  these  plays, 
their  position  in  the  history  of  English  dramatic  literature 
is  still  a  high  and  remarkable  one.  It  was  Dryden  who, 
if  he  for  the  moment  headed  the  desertion  of  the  purely 
English  style  of  drama,  authoritatively  and  finally  ordered 
and  initiated  the  return  to  a  saner  tradition.  Even  in 
his  period  of  aberration  he  produced  on  his  faulty  plan 
such  work  as  few  other  men  have  produced  on  the  best 
plans  yet  elaborated.  The  reader  who,  ignorant  of  the 
English  heroic  play,  goes  to  Dryden  for  information  about 
it,  may  be  surprised  and  shocked  at  its  inferiority  to  the 
drama  of  the  great  masters.  But  he  who  goes  to  it  know- 
ing the  contemporary  work  of  Davenant  and  Boyle,  of 
Howard  and  Settle,  will  rather  wonder  at  the  unmatched 
literary  faculty  which  from  such  data  could  evolve  such 
a  result.  The  one  play  in  which  he  gave  himself  the 
reins  remains,  as  far  as  it  appears  to  me,  the  only  play, 
with  the  exception  of  Venice  Preserved,  which  was  written 
80  as  to  be  thoroughly  worth  reading  now  for  1 60, 1  had 
almost  said  for  200  years.  The  Mourning  Bride  and  the 
Miir  Penitent  are  worthless  by  the  side  of  it,  and  to 
them  may  be  added  at  one  sweep  every  tragedy  written 
during  the  whole  eighteenth  century.  Since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  we  have  indeed  improved  the  poet- 
ical standard  of  this  most  difficult,  not  to  say  hopeless,  form 
of  composition ;  but  at  the  same  time  we  have  in  general 
lowered  the  dramatic  standard.  Half  the  best  plays  writ- 
ten since  the  year  1800  have  been  avowedly  written  with 
hardly  a  thought  of  being  acted ;  I  should  be  sorry  to  say 


Ti.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  119 

how  many  of  the  other  half  have  either  failed  to  be  acted 
at  all,  or,  having  been  acted,  have  proved  dead  failures. 
Now  Dryden  did  so  far  manage  to  conciliate  the  gifts  of 
the  play-wright  and  the  poet,  that  he  produced  work  which 
was  good  poetry  and  good  acting  material.  It  is  idle  to 
dispute  the  deserts  of  his  success,  the  fact  remains. 

Most,  however,  of  his  numerous  hostile  critics  would 
confess  and  avoid  the  tragedies,  and  would  concentrate 
their  attention  on  the  comedies.  It  is  impossible  to  help, 
in  part,  imitating  and  transferring  their  tactics.  No  apol- 
ogy for  the  offensive  characteristics  of  these  productions 
is  possible,  and,  if  it  were  possible,  I  for  one  have  no  care 
to  attempt  it.  The  coarseness  of  Dryden's  plays  is  unpar- 
donable. It  does  not  come  under  any  of  the  numerous 
categories  of  excuse  which  can  be  devised  for  other  offend- 
ers in  the  same  kind.  It  is  deliberate,  it  is  unnecessary, 
it  is  a  positive  defect  in  art.  When  the  culprit,  in  his  oth- 
erwise dignified  and  not  unsuccessful  confiteor  to  Collier, 
endeavours  to  shield  himself  by  the  example  of  the  elder 
dramatists,  the  shield  is  seen  at  once,  and,  what  is  more, 
we  know  that  he  must  have  seen  it  himself  to  be  a  mere 
shield  of  paper.  But  in  truth  the  heaviest  punishment 
that  Dryden  could  possibly  have  suffered,  the  punishment 
which  Diderot  has  indicated  as  inevitably  imminent  on 
this  particular  offence,  has  come  upon  him.  The  fouler 
parts  of  his  work  have  simply  ceased  to  be  read,  and  his 
most  thorough  defenders  can  only  read  them  for  the  pur- 
pose of  appreciation  and  defence  at  the  price  of  being 
queasy  and  qualmish.  He  has  exposed  his  legs  to  the  ar- 
rows of  any  criticaster  who  chooses  to  aim  at  him,  and  the 
criticasters  have  not  failed  to  jump  at  the  chance  of  so  no- 
ble a  quarry.  Yet  I,  for  my  part,  shall  still  maintain  that 
the  merits  of  Dryden's  comedies  are  by  no  means  incon- 


120  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

siderable  ;  indeed  that,  when  Shakspeare,  and  Jonson,  and 
Fletcher,  and  Etherege,  and  Wycherley,  and  Congreve,  and 
Vanbrugh,  and  Sheridan  have  been  put  aside,  he  has  few 
superiors.  The  unfailing  thoroughness  with  which  he  did 
every  description  of  literary  work  has  accompanied  him 
even  here,  where  he  worked,  according  to  his  own  confes- 
sion, against  the  grain,  and  where  he  was  less  gifted  by 
nature  than  scores  of  other  facile  workers  who  could  be 
named.  The  one  situation  which  he  could  manage  has 
been  already  indicated,  and  it  is  surely  not  a  thing  to  be 
wholly  neglected  that  his  handlings  of  this  situation  un- 
doubtedly preceded  and  probably  suggested  the  crowning 
triumph  of  English  comedy — the  sublime  apotheosis  of 
the  coquette  in  Millamant.  To  produce  that  triumph  Dry- 
den  himself  was  indeed  unable.  But  from  sheer  literary 
skill  (the  dominant  faculty  in  him)  he  produced  in  Dora- 
lice,  and  in  Melantha,  and  in  Florimel,  something  not 
wholly  unlike  it.  So,  too,  in  the  central  figure  of  the 
Spanish  Friar  he  achieved  in  the  same  way,  by  sheer  lit- 
erary faculty  and  by  the  skilful  manipulation  of  his  pred- 
ecessors, something  like  an  independent  and  an  original 
creation.  The  one  disqualification  under  which  Dryden 
laboured,  the  disqualification  to  create  a  character,  would 
have  been  in  any  lesser  man  a  hopeless  bar  even  to  the 
most  moderate  dramatic  success.  But  the  superhuman 
degree  in  which  he  possessed  the  other  and  strictly  litera- 
ry gift  of  adoption  and  arrangement  almost  supplied  the 
place  of  what  was  wanting,  and  almost  made  him  the 
equal  of  the  more  facile  makers.  So  close  was  his  study, 
so  untiring  his  experiments,  so  sure  his  command,  by  dint 
of  practice,  of  language,  and  metre,  and  situation,  that  he 
could,  like  the  magicians  of  Egypt,  make  serpents  almost 
like,  or   quite   like  those   of  the  true   dramatic   Moses. 


VI.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  121 

Sbakspeare's  serpents  have  eaten  his  up  in  time,  and  the 
retribution  is  just,  but  the  credit  of  the  original  feat  is 
hardly  the  less  for  that.  In  short,  all,  or  almost  all.  Dry- 
den's  dramatic  work  is  a  tour  de  force,  but  then  it  is  such 
a  tour  deforce  as  the  world  has  hardly  elsewhere  seen.  He 
was  **  bade  to  toil  on  to  make  them  sport,"  and  he  obeyed 
the  bidding  with  perhaps  less  reluctance  than  he  should 
have  shown.  But  he  managed,  as  genius  always  does 
manage,  to  turn  the  hack-work  into  a  possession  for  ever 
here  and  there.  Unluckily  it  was  only  here  and  there, 
and  no  more  can  be  claimed  for  it  by  any  rational  critic. 

The  subject  of  Dryden's  prose  work  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  that  of  his  dramatic  performances.  Had  it 
not  been  for  the  interest  he  felt  in  matters  dramatic,  he 
might  never  have  ventured  into  anything  longer  than  a 
preface ;  and  his  prefaces  would  certainly  have  lacked  the 
remarkable  interest  in  the  history  of  style  and  in  the  his- 
tory of  criticism  which  they  now  possess.  At  the  time 
when  he  first  began  to  write,  the  accepted  prose  style  of 
English  was  in  much  greater  need  of  reform  and  reinforce- 
ment than  the  accepted  poetical  style;  or, to  speak  more 
properly,  there  was  no  accepted  prose  style  at  all.  Great 
masters  —  Bacon,  Hooker,  Clarendon,  Milton,  Taylor, 
Hobbes,  Bunyan,  and  some  others — may  be  quoted  from 
the  first  two-thirds  of  the  seventeenth  century ;  but  their 
excellences,  like  the  excellences  of  the  writers  of  French 
prose  somewhat  earlier,  were  almost  wholly  individual,  and 
provided  in  no  way  a  model  whereby  the  average  writer 
might  form  himself  for  average  purposes.  Now,  prose  is 
above  all  things  the  instrument  of  the  average  purpose. 
Poetry  is  more  or  less  intolerable  if  it  be  not  intrinsical- 
ly and  peculiarly  good ;  prose  is  the  necessary  vehicle  of 
thought  Up  to  Dryden's  time  no  such  generally  avail- 
I    6* 


122  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

able  vehicle  had  been  attempted  or  achieved  by  any  one. 
Clarendon  had  shown  how  genius  can  make  the  best  of 
the  worst  style,  which  from  any  general  point  of  view  his 
must  probably  be  pronounced  to  be.  In  his  hands  it  is 
alternately  delightful  or  tolerable;  in  the  hands  of  any- 
body else  it  would  be  simply  frightful.  His  parentheses, 
his  asides,  his  endless  involutions  of  phrase  and  thought, 
save  themselves  as  if  by  miracle,  and  certainly  could  not  be 
trusted  so  to  save  themselves  in  any  less  favoured  hands. 
Bacon  and  Hooker,  the  former  in  an  ornate,  the  latter  in  a 
simple  style,  reproduce  classical  constructions  and  forms  in 
English.  Taylor  and  Milton  write  poetry  in  prose.  Quaint- 
ness  and  picturesque  matter  justify,  and  more  than  justify. 
Fuller  and  Browne.  Bunyan  puts  the  vernacular  into  print 
with  a  sublime  assurance  and  success.  Hobbes,  casting  off 
all  ornament  and  all  pretence  of  ornament,  clothes  his  naked 
strength  in  the  simplest  garment  of  words  competent  to 
cover  its  nakedness.  But  none  of  these  had  elaborated,  or 
aimed  at  elaborating,  a  style  suited  for  every-day  use — for 
the  essayist  and  the  pamphleteer,  the  preacher  and  the  lay 
orator,  the  historian  and  the  critic.  This  was  what  Dry- 
den  did  with  little  assistance  from  any  forerunner,  if  it  were 
not  Tillotson,  to  whom,  as  we  know  from  Congreve,  he  ac- 
knowledged his  indebtedness.  But  Tillotson  was  not  a 
much  older  man  than  Dryden  himself,  and  at  least  when 
the  latter  began  to  write  prose,  his  work  was  neither  bulky 
nor  particularly  famous.  Nor  in  reading  Tillotson,  though 
it  is  clear  that  he  and  Dryden  were  in  some  sort  working 
on  the  same  lines,  is  it  possible  to  trace  much  indebtedness 
on  the  part  of  the  poet.  The  sometime  archbishop's  ser- 
mons are  excellent  in  their  combination  of  simplicity  with 
a  certain  grace,  but  they  are  much  less  remarkable  than 
Dryden's  own  work  for  the  union  of  the  two.     The  great 


Ti]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  128 

fault  of  the  elders  had  been,  first,  the  inordinate  length  of 
their  sentences ;  secondly — and  this  was  rather  a  cause  of 
the  first  fault  than  an  additional  error — their  indulgence 
in  parenthetic  quotations,  borrowed  arguments,  and  other 
strengtheners  of  the  position  of  the  man  who  has  to  rely 
on  authority ;  thirdly,  the  danger  to  which  they  were  al- 
ways exposed,  of  slipping  into  clumsy  classicisms  on  one 
side,  or  inelegant  vernacular  on  the  other.  Dryden  avoid- 
ed all  these  faults,  though  his  avoidance  was  not  a  matter 
of  a  day  or  a  year,  nor  was  it,  as  far  as  can  be  made  out, 
altogether  an  avoidance  of  malice  prepense.  Accident  fa- 
voured him  in  exactly  the  reverse  way  to  that  in  which  it 
had  favoured  the  reformer  of  French  prose  half  a  century 
or  so  before.  Balzac  had  nothing  to  say,  and  therefore  was 
extremely  careful  and  exquisite  in  his  manner  of  saying  it. 
Dryden  had  a  great  deal  to  say,  and  said  it  in  the  plain, 
straightforward  fashion  which  was  of  all  things  most  likely 
to  be  useful  for  the  formation  of  a  workman-like  prose 
style  in  English. 

The  influences  of  the  post-Restoration  period  which,  by 
their  working,  produced  the  splendid  variety  and  eflSciency 
of  prose  in  the  eighteenth  century — the  century,  par  excel- 
lence, of  prose  in  English — were  naturally  numerous ;  but 
there  were  four  which  had  an  influence  far  surpassing  that 
of  the  rest.  These  four  were  the  influences  of  the  pul- 
pit, of  political  discussion,  of  miscellaneous  writing — partly 
fictitious,  partly  discursive — and  lastly,  of  literary  criticism. 
In  this  last  Dryden  himself  was  the  great  authority  of  the 
period,  and  for  many  years  it  was  in  this  form  that  he  at 
once  exercised  himself  and  educated  his  age  in  the  matter 
of  prose  writing.  Accident  and  the  circumstances  of  the 
time  helped  to  give  him  a  considerable  audience,  and  an 
influence  of  great  width,  the  critical  spirit  being  extensive- 


124  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

ly  diffused  at  the  time.  This  critical  spirit  was  to  a  great 
extent  a  reflection  of  that  which,  beginning  with  Malherbe, 
and  continuing  with  the  institution  and  regulation  of  the 
Academy,  had  for  some  time  been  remarkable  in  France. 
Not  long  after  the  Restoration  one  of  the  subtlest  and 
most  accomplished  of  all  French  critics  took  up  his  resi- 
dence in  England,  and  gave  further  impulse  to  the  fashion 
which  Charles  himself  and  many  other  cavaliers  had  al- 
ready picked  up.  Saint  Evremond  lived  in  England  for 
some  forty  years,  and  during  the  greater  part  of  that  time 
was  an  oracle  of  the  younger  men  of  wit  and  pleasure 
about  London.  Now  Saint  Evremond  was  a  remarkable 
instance  of  that  rare  animal,  the  bom  critic ;  even  nowa- 
days his  critical  dicta  are  worthy  of  all  attention.  He  had 
a  kind  of  critical  intuition,  which  is  to  be  paralleled  only 
by  the  historical  and  scientific  intuition  which  some  of  the 
greatest  historians  and  men  of  science  have  had.  With 
national  and  characteristic  indolence  he  never  gave  himself 
the  trouble  to  learn  English  properly,  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he  could  have  read  a  single  English  play.  Yet 
his  critical  remarks  on  some  English  poets,  not  borrowed 
from  his  friends,  but  constructed  from  their  remarks,  as  a 
clever  counsel  would  construct  a  pleading  out  of  the  infor- 
mation furnished  him,  are  extraordinarily  acute  and  accu- 
rate. The  relish  for  literary  discussion  which  Saint  Evre- 
mond shows  was  no  peculiarity  of  his,  though  he  had  it  in 
super-eminent  measure.  It  was  fashionable  in  France,  and 
he  helped  to  make  it  fashionable  in  England. 

I  have  seen  this  style  of  criticism  dismissed  contempt- 
nously  as  "  trifling ;"  but  this  is  only  an  instance  of  the 
strange  power  of  reaction.  Because  for  many  years  the 
plan  of  criticising  by  rule  and  line  was  almost  exclusively 
pursued,  and,  as  happens  in  the  case  of  almost  all  exclusive 


Ti.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  126 

pursuits,  was  followed  too  far,  it  seems  to  some  people 
nowadays,  that  criticism  ought  to  be  confined  to  the  ex- 
pression, in  more  or  less  elegant  language,  of  the  feelings 
of  admiration  or  dislike  which  the  subject  criticised  may 
excite  in  the  critic's  mind.  The  critic  ought  to  give  this 
impression,  but  he  ought  not  to  leave  the  other  task  unat- 
tempted,  and  the  result  of  leaving  it  unattempted  is  to  be 
found  in  the  loose  and  haphazard  judgments  which  now 
too  often  compose  what  is  called  criticism.  The  criticism 
of  the  Gallic  School,  which  Dryden  and  Saint  Evremond 
helped  so  much  to  naturalize  in  England,  was  at  least  not 
afraid  of  giving  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  it.  The 
critics  strove  to  examine  the  abstract  value  of  this  or  that 
literary  form,  the  propriety  of  this  or  that  mode  of  expres- 
sion, the  limits  to  be  imposed  on  the  choice  and  disposition 
of  this  or  that  subject.  No  doubt  this  often  resulted  in 
looking  merely  at  the  stopwatch,  as  Sterne's  famous  phrase 
has  it.  But  it  often  resulted  in  something  better,  and  it 
at  least  produced  something  like  reasonable  uniformity  of 
judgment. 

Dryden's  criticisms  took,  as  a  rule,  the  form  of  prefaces 
to  his  plays,  and  the  reading  of  the  play  ensured,  to  some 
considerable  extent,  the  reading  of  the  preface.  Probably 
the  pattern  may  be  found  in  Corneille's  Examens.  Nor 
must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  questions  attacked  in  these 
disquisitions  were  of  real  interest  at  the  time  to  a  large 
number  of  persons;  to  a  very  much  larger  number  rela- 
tively, perhaps  even  to  a  much  larger  number  absolutely, 
than  would  now  be  the  case.  The  first  instance  of  a  con- 
siderable piece  of  prose  written  by  Dryden  was  not,  indeed, 
a  preface,  though  it  was  of  the  nature  of  one.  The  Essay 
on  Dramatic  Poesy  was  written,  according  to  its  own  show- 
ing, in  the  summer  of  1665,  and  published  two  or  three 


126  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

years  later.  It  takes  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  in- 
terlocutors, who  are  sufficiently  identified  with  Dorset,  Sed- 
ley,  Sir  Robert  Howard,  and  Dryden  himself.  The  argu- 
ment turns  on  various  questions  of  comparison  between 
classical  French  and  English  dramas,  and  especially  between 
English  dramas  of  the  old  and  of  the  newer  type,  the  lat- 
ter of  which  Dryden  defends.  It  is  noticeable,  however, 
that  this  very  essay  contained  one  of  the  best  worded  and 
best  thought-out  of  the  author's  many  panegyrics  upon 
Shakspeare.  Viewed  simply  from  the  point  of  view  of  style 
this  performance  exhibits  Dryden  as  already  a  considerable 
master  of  prose,  though,  so  far  as  we  know,  he  had  had  no 
practice  in  it  beyond  a  few  Prefaces  and  Dedications,  if 
we  except  the  unacknowledged  hackwork  which  he  is  some- 
times said  to  have  performed  for  the  bookseller  Herring- 
man.  There  is  still  something  of  the  older,  lengthy  sen- 
tence, and  of  the  tendency  to  elongate  it  by  joint  on  joint 
as  fresh  thoughts  recur  to  the  writer.  But  these  elonga- 
tions rarely  sacrifice  clearness,  and  there  is  an  almost  total 
absence,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  cumbrous  classical  con- 
structions of  the  elders ;  on  the  other,  of  the  quaint  collo- 
quialisms which  generally  make  their  appearance  when  this 
more  ambitious  style  is  discarded.  The  Essay  was  quickly 
followed  by  a  kind  of  reply  from  Sir  Robert  Howard,  and 
Dryden  made  a  somewhat  sharp  rejoinder  to  his  brother- 
in-law  in  the  defence  of  the  Essay  which  he  prefixed  to  his 
play  of  The  Indian  Emperor.  He  was  evidently  very  an- 
gry with  Sir  Robert,  who  had,  indeed,  somewhat  justified 
Shadwell's  caricature  of  him  as  *'  Sir  Positive  At-All ;"  and 
this  anger  is  not  without  effects  on  the  style  of  the  de- 
fence. Its  sentences  are  sharper,  shorter,  more  briskly  and 
flippantly  moulded  than  those  of  the  Essay.  Indeed,  about 
this  time — the  time  of  his  greatest  prosperity — Dryden 


Ti.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  127 

seems  to  have  passed,  somewhat  late  in  life,  through  a  pe- 
riod of  flippancy.  He  was  for  a  few  years  decidedly  pros- 
perous, and  his  familiarity  with  men  of  rank  and  position 
seems  a  little  to  have  turned  his  head.  It  was  at  this  time, 
and  at  this  time  only,  that  he  spoke  disrespectfully  of  his 
great  predecessors,  and  insinuated,  in  a  manner  which,  I 
fear,  must  be  called  snobbish,  that  his  own  familiarity  with 
such  models  of  taste  and  deportment  as  Rochester  put  him 
in  a  very  superior  position  for  the  drawing  of  character 
to  such  humble  and  home-keeping  folks  as  the  old  drama- 
tists. These  prefaces  and  dedications,  however,  even  where 
their  matter  is  scarcely  satisfactory,  show  an  ever-growing 
command  of  prose  style,  and  very  soon  the  resipiscence  of 
Dryden's  judgment,  and  the  result  of  his  recently  renewed 
study  of  the  older  writers.  The  Preface  to  All  for  Love, 
though  short,  and  more  familiar  in  style  than  the  earlier 
work,  is  of  excellent  quality ;  and  the  same  may  be  said 
of  those  to  Troilus  and  Cressida  and  the  Spanish  Friar, 
the  latter  of  which  is  especially  characteristic,  and  contains 
some  striking  remarks  on  the  old  dramatists.  The  great 
poetical  works  of  the  period  between  1680  and  1687  are 
also  attended  by  prose  introductions,  and  some  of  these 
are  exceedingly  well  done.  The  Epistle  to  the  Whigs, 
which  forms  the  preface  to  the  Medal,  is  a  piece  of  po- 
litical writing  such  as  there  had  been  hitherto  but  very 
little  in  English,  and  it  was  admirably  followed  up  by 
the  Vindication  of  the  Duke  of  Guise.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  preface  to  Religio  Laid,  though  partly  also 
polemical,  is  a  model  of  what  may  be  called  the  exposi- 
tory style.  Drydcn  obtained  no  great  credit  for  his  con- 
troversy with  Stillingfleet,  his  Life  of  St.  Francis  Xavier, 
or  his  History  of  the  League,  all  of  which  were  directly  or 
indirectly  controversial,  and  concerned  with  the  political 


128  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

events  of  the  time.  As  his  lengthiest  prose  works,  how- 
ever, they  can  hardly  be  passed  over  without  notice. 

The  Revolution,  in  throwing  Dryden  back  upon  purely 
literary  pursuits,  did  him  no  more  harm  in  the  way  of 
prose  than  of  poetical  composition.  Not  a  few  of  his 
Translations  have  prose  prefaces  of  peculiar  excellence  pre- 
fixed. The  sketch  of  Satire  which  forms  the  preface  to 
the  Juvenal  is  one  of  the  best  of  its  author's  performances. 
The  uEneid  is  introduced  by  an  admirable  dedication  to 
Mulgrave ;  but  the  essay  on  the  Georgics,  though  it  is  not, 
indeed,  Dryden's  own,  is  almost  more  interesting  in  this 
connexion  than  if  it  were;  for  this  essay  came  from  the 
pen  of  no  less  a  person  than  Addison,  then  a  young  man 
of  five-and-twenty,  and  it  enables  us  to  judge  of  the  in- 
debtedness of  the  Queen  Anne  men  to  Dryden,  in  prose  as 
well  as  in  poetry.  It  would  be  a  keen  critic  who,  knowing 
Addison  only  from  the  Spectator,  could  detect  his  hand  in 
this  performance.  But  it  does  not  require  much  keenness 
in  any  one  who  knows  Dryden's  prose  and  Addison's,  to 
trace  the  link  of  connexion  which  this  piece  affords.  It 
lies  much  nearer  to  the  former  than  the  latter,  and  it 
shows  clearly  how  the  writer  must  have  studied  those 
"prefaces  of  Dryden"  which  Swift  chose  to  sneer  at.  As 
in  poetry,  however,  so  in  prose,  Dryden's  best,  or  almost 
his  best  work,  was  his  last.  The  dedication  of  the  Fables 
to  the  Duke  of  Ormond  is  the  last  and  the  most  splendid 
of  his  many  pieces  of  polished  flattery.  The  preface  which 
follows  it  is  the  last  and  one  of  the  best  examples  of  his 
literary  criticism. 

It  has  been  justly  observed  of  Dryden's  prose  style  that 
it  is,  for  the  style  of  so  distinguished  a  writer,  singularly 
destitute  of  mannerism.  If  we  father  any  particular  piece 
upon  him  without  knowing  it  to  be  his,  it  is  not,  as  in  the 


Ti.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  129 

case  of  most  writers,  because  of  some  obvious  trick  of  ar- 
rangement or  phraseology.  The  truth  is,  or  at  least  the 
probability,  that  Dryden  had  no  thought  of  inventing  or 
practising  a  definite  prose  style,  though  he  had  more  than 
once  a  very  definite  intention  in  his  practice  of  matters 
poetical.  Poetry  was  with  him,  as,  indeed,  it  should  be, 
an  end  in  itself ;  prose,  as  perhaps  it  should  also  be  for 
the  most  part,  only  a  means  to  an  end.  He  wanted,  from 
time  to  time,  to  express  his  ideas  on  certain  points  that  in- 
terested him ;  to  answer  accusations  which  he  thought  un- 
just ;  to  propitiate  powerful  patrons ;  sometimes,  perhaps, 
merely  to  discharge  commissions  with  which  he  had  been 
intrusted.  He  found  no  good  instrument  ready  to  his  hand 
for  these  purposes,  and  so,  with  that  union  of  the  practical 
and  literary  spirit  which  distinguished  him  so  strongly,  he 
set  to  work  to  make  one.  But  he  had  no  special  predi- 
lection for  the  instrument,  except  in  so  far  as  it  served  its 
turn,  and  he  had,  therefore,  no  object  in  preserving  any 
special  peculiarities  in  it  except  for  the  same  reason.  His 
poetical  and  dramatic  practice,  and  the  studies  which  that 
practice  implied,  provided  him  with  an  ample  vocabulary, 
a  strong,  terse  method  of  expression,  and  a  dislike  to  ar- 
chaism, vulgarity,  or  want  of  clearness.  He  therefore  let 
his  words  arrange  themselves  pretty  much  as  they  would, 
and  probably  saw  no  object  in  such  devices  as  the  balanc- 
ing of  one  part  of  a  sentence  by  another,  which  attracted 
so  many  of  his  successors.  The  long  sentence,  with  its 
involved  clauses,  was  contrary  to  his  habit  of  thought,  and 
would  have  interfered  with  his  chief  objects — clearness  and 
precision.  Therefore  he,  in  the  main,  discarded  it ;  yet  if 
at  any  time  a  long  and  somewhat  complicated  sentence 
seemed  to  him  to  be  appropriate,  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
write  one.     Slipshod  diction  and  cant  vulgarities  revolted 


130  DRYDEN.  [chaf. 

his  notions  of  correctness  and  elegance,  and  therefore  he 
seldom  uses  them ;  yet  there  are  not  very  many  writers  in 
whom  colloquialisms  occasionally  occur  with  happier  effect. 
If  a  fault  is  to  be  found  with  his  style,  it  probably  lies  in 
a  certain  abuse  of  figures  and  of  quotation,  for  both  of 
which  his  strong  tincture  of  the  characteristics  of  the  first 
half  of  the  century  may  be  responsible,  while  the  former, 
at  least,  is  natural  to  a  poet.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  his  style, 
if  compared  either  with  Hooker  and  Clarendon,  Bacon  and 
Milton,  on  the  one  hand,  or  with  Addison,  and  still  more 
the  later  eighteenth  century  writers,  on  the  other,  is  a  dis- 
tinctly plain  and  homely  style.  It  is  not  so  vernacular  as 
Bunyan  or  Defoe,  and  not  quite  so  perfect  in  simplicity  as 
Swift.  Yet  with  the  work  of  these  three  writers  it  stands 
at  the  head  of  the  plainer  English  prose  styles,  possessing 
at  the  same  time  a  capacity  of  magnificence  to  which  the 
others  cannot  pretend.  As  there  is  no  original  narrative 
of  any  length  from  Dryden's  hand  in  prose,  it  is  difficult 
to  say  whether  he  could  have  discharged  satisfactorily  this 
part  of  the  prose-writer's  functions.  The  Life  of  Xavier 
is  good,  but  not  of  the  best.  For  almost  any  other  func- 
tion, however,  the  style  seems  to  be  well  adapted. 

Now  this,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  the  great  want 
of  the  day  in  matter  of  prose  style — a  style,  namely,  that 
should  be  generally  flexible  and  capable  of  adaptation,  not 
merely  to  the  purposes  of  the  erudite  and  ambitious,  but 
to  any  purpose  for  which  it  might  be  required,  and  in 
which  the  vernacular  and  the  literary  elements  should  be 
properly  blended  and  adjusted.  It  is  scarcely  too  much 
to  say  that  if,  as  some  critics  have  inclined  to  think,  the 
influence  of  Dryden  tended  to  narrow  the  sphere  and 
cramp  the  efforts  of  English  poetry,  it  tended  equally  to 
onlarge  the  sphere  and  develope  the  energies  of  English 


Ti.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  131 

prose.  It  has  often  been  noticed  that  poets,  when  they 
have  any  faculty  for  prose  writing,  arc  among  the  best  of 
prose  writers,  and  of  no  one  is  this  more  true  than  it  is  of 
Dryden. 

Set  prose  passages  of  laboured  excellence  are  not  very 
common  with  Dryden.  But  the  two  following,  the  first 
being  the  famous  character  of  Shakspeare  from  the  Essay 
on  Dramatic  Poesy,  the  second  an  extract  from  the  preface 
to  the  Fables,  will  give  some  idea  of  his  style  at  periods 
separated  by  more  than  thirty  years.  The  one  was  his 
first  work  of  finished  prose,  the  other  his  last : 

"As  Neander  was  beginning  to  examine  'The  Silent  Woman,' 
Eugeniua,  earnestly  regarding  him ;  I  beseech  you,  Neander,  said  he, 
gratify  the  company,  and  me  in  particular,  bo  far,  as  before  you  speak 
of  the  play,  to  give  us  a  character  of  the  author ;  and  tell  us  frankly 
your  opinion,  whether  you  do  not  think  all  writers,  both  French  and 
English,  ought  to  give  place  to  him.  I  fear,  replied  Neander,  that  in 
obeying  your  commands  I  shall  draw  some  envy  on  myself.  Besides, 
in  performing  them,  it  will  be  first  necessary  to  speak  somewhat  of 
Shakspeare  and  Fletcher,  his  rivals  in  poesy ;  and  one  of  them,  in  my 
opinion,  at  least  his  equal,  perhaps  his  superior.  To  begin  then  with 
Shakspeare.  He  was  the  man  who  of  all  modem,  and  perhaps  an- 
cient poets,  had  the  largest  and  most  comprehensive  soul.  All  the 
images  of  nature  were  still  present  to  him,  and  he  drew  them  not  la- 
boriously, but  luckily ;  when  he  describes  anything,  you  more  than 
see  it,  you  feel  it  too.  Those  who  accuse  him  to  have  wanted  learn- 
ing, give  him  the  greater  commendation :  he  was  naturally  learned ; 
he  needed  not  the  spectacles  of  books  to  read  nature ;  he  looked  in- 
wards, and  found  her  there.  I  cannot  say  he  is  everywhere  alike ; 
were  he  so,  I  should  do  him  injury  to  compare  him  with  the  greatest 
of  mankind.  He  is  many  times  flat,  insipid — his  comick  wit  degen- 
erating into  clenches,  his  serious  swelling  into  bombast.  But  he  is 
always  great  when  some  great  occasion  is  presented  to  him ;  no  man 
can  say  he  ever  had  a  fit  subject  for  his  wit,  and  did  not  then  raise 
himself  as  high  above  the  rest  of  poets, 

'Quantum  lenta  Bolent  iuter  vibnrna  cupressl.' 


182  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

The  consideration  of  this  made  Mr.  Hales  of  Eton  say,  that  there  was 
no  subject  of  which  any  poet  ever  writ  but  he  would  produce  it  much 
better  done  in  Shakspeare ;  and  however  others  are  now  generally 
preferred  before  him,  yet  the  age  wherein  he  Uved,  which  had  con- 
temporaries with  him,  Fletcher  and  Jonson,  never  equalled  them  to 
him  in  their  esteem ;  and  in  the  last  king's  court,  when  Ben's  repu- 
tation was  at  highest.  Sir  John  Suckling,  and  with  him  the  greater 
part  of  the  courtiers,  set  our  Shakspeare  far  above  him." 


"  As  for  the  religion  of  our  poet,'  he  seems  to  have  some  little  bias 
towards  the  opinions  of  Wicklifife,  after  John  of  Gaunt,  his  patron ; 
somewhat  of  which  appears  in  the  '  Tale  of  Pierce  Plowman ;'  yet  I 
cannot  blame  him  for  inveighing  so  sharply  against  the  vices  of  the 
clergy  in  his  age :  their  pride,  their  ambition,  their  pomp,  their  ava- 
rice, their  worldly  interest,  deserved  the  lashes  which  he  gave  them, 
both  in  that  and  in  most  of  his  Canterbury  Tales.  Neither  has  his 
contemporary,  Boccace,  spared  them.  Yet  both  those  poets  lived  in 
much  esteem  with  good  and  holy  men  in  orders ;  for  the  scandal 
which  is  given  by  particular  priests  reflects  not  on  the  sacred  func- 
tion. Chaucer's  Monk,  his  Canon,  and  his  Friar  took  not  from  the 
character  of  his  Good  Parson.  A  satirical  poet  is  the  check  of  the 
laymen  on  bad  priests.  We  are  only  to  take  care  that  we  involve 
not  the  innocent  with  the  guilty  in  the  same  condemnation.  The 
good  cannot  be  too  much  honoured,  nor  the  bad  too  coarsely  used ; 
for  the  corruption  of  the  best  becomes  the  worst.  When  a  clergy- 
man is  whipped,  his  gown  is  first  taken  off,  by  which  the  dignity  of 
his  order  is  secured.  If  he  be  wrongfully  accused,  he  has  his  action 
of  slander:  and  it  is  at  the  poet's  peril  if  he  transgress  the  law. 
But  they  will  tell  us  that  all  kind  of  satire,  though  never  so  well  de- 
served by  particular  priests,  yet  brings  the  whole  order  into  con- 
tempt. Is  then  the  peerage  of  England  anjrthing  dishonoured  when 
a  peer  suffers  for  his  treason?  If  he  be  Hbelled,  or  any  way  de- 
famed, he  has  his  scandalum  magnatum  to  punish  the  offender. 
They  who  use  this  kind  of  argument  seem  to  be  conscious  to  them- 
selves of  somewhat  which  has  deserved  the  poet's  lash,  and  are  less 
>  Chaacer. 


Ti.]  LATER  DRAMAS  AND  PROSE  WORKS.  133 

concerned  for  their  publick  capacity  than  for  their  private ;  at  least, 
there  is  pride  at  the  bottom  of  their  reasoning.  If  the  faults  of  men 
in  orders  are  only  to  be  judged  among  themselves,  they  are  all  in 
some  sort  parties ;  for,  since  they  say  the  honour  of  their  order  is 
concerned  in  every  member  of  it,  how  can  we  be  sure  that  they  will 
be  impartial  judges  ?  How  far  I  may  be  allowed  to  speak  my  opin- 
ion in  this  case,  I  know  not ;  but  I  am  sure  a  dispute  of  this  nature 
caused  mischief  in  abundance  betwixt  a  King  of  England  and  an 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury ,  one  standing  up  for  the  laws  of  his  land, 
and  the  other  for  the  honour  (as  he  called  it)  of  God's  church ; 
which  ended  in  the  murder  of  the  Prelate,  and  in  the  whipping  of  his 
Majesty  from  post  to  pillar  for  his  penance.  The  learned  and  in- 
genious Dr.  Drake  has  saved  me  the  labour  of  enquiring  into  the 
esteem  and  reverence  which  the  priests  have  had  of  old ;  and  I  would 
rather  extend  than  diminish  any  part  of  it ;  yet  I  must  needs  say 
that,  when  a  priest  provokes  me  without  any  occasion  given  him,  I 
have  no  reason,  unless  it  be  the  charity  of  a  Christian,  to  forgive 
him :  prior  Imsit  is  justification  sufficient  in  the  civil  law.  If  I  an- 
swer him  in  his  own  language,  self-defence,  I  am  sure,  must  be  allow- 
ed me ;  and  if  I  carry  it  farther,  even  to  a  sharp  recrimination,  some- 
what may  be  indulged  to  human  frailty.  Yet  my  resentment  has  not 
wrought  so  far,  but  that  I  have  followed  Chaucer  in  his  character  of 
a  holy  man,  and  have  enlarged  on  that  subject  with  some  pleasure, 
reserving  to  myself  the  right,  if  I  shall  think  fit  hereafter,  to  describe 
another  sort  of  priests,  such  as  are  more  easily  to  be  found  than  the 
Good  Parson ;  such  as  have  given  the  last  blow  to  Christianity  in 
this  age,  by  a  practice  so  contrary  to  their  doctrine.  But  this  will 
keep  cold  till  another  time.  In  the  mean  while  I  take  up  Chaucer 
where  I  left  him." 

These  must  suffice  for  examples  of  the  matter  as  well 
as  of  the  manner  of  the  literary  criticism  which  forms 
the  chief  and  certainly  the  most  valuable  part  of  Dryden's 
prose  works.  The  great  value  of  that  criticism  consists 
in  its  extremely  appreciative  character,  and  in  its  constant 
connexion  with  the  poet's  own  constructive  work.  There 
is  much  in  it  which  might  seem  to  expose  Dryden  to  the 
charge  of  inconsistency.    But  the  truth  is,  that  his  literary 


134  DRYDEN.  [chap.  vi. 

opinions  were  in  a  perpetual  state  of  progress,  and  there- 
fore of  apparent  flux.  Sometimes  he  wrote  with  defective 
knowledge,  sometimes,  though  not  often,  without  think- 
ing the  subject  out,  sometimes  (and  this  very  often)  with  a 
certain  one-sidedness  of  view  having  reference  rather  to  the 
bearing  of  the  point  on  experiments  he  was  then  trying  or 
about  to  try,  than  to  any  more  abstract  considerations.  He 
never  aimed  at  paradox  for  its  own  sake,  but  he  never 
shrank  from  it ;  and,  on  the  whole,  his  criticisms,  though 
perhaps  nowadays  they  appeal  rather  to  the  expert  and 
the  student  than  to  the  general  reader,  are  at  least  as  in- 
teresting for  their  matter  as  for  their  form.  The  impor- 
tance of  the  study  of  that  form  in  the  cultivation  of  a  ro- 
bust English  style  has  never  been  denied. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PERIOD    OF   TRANSLATION. 

It  is  in  most  cases  a  decidedly  difficult  problem  to  settle 
the  exact  influence  which  any  writer's  life  and  circum- 
stances have  upon  his  literary  performances  and  career. 
Although  there  are  probably  few  natures  so  absolutely 
self  -  suflBcing  and  so  imperial  in  their  individuality  that 
they  take  no  imprint  from  the  form  and  pressure  of  the 
time,  the  exact  force  which  that  pressure  exercises  is  near- 
ly always  very  hard  to  calculate.  In  the  case  of  Dry  den, 
however,  the  diflSculty  is  fortunately  minimized.  There 
was  never,  it  may  safely  be  said,  so  great  a  writer  who  was 
so  thoroughly  occasional  in  the  character  of  his  greatness. 
The  one  thing  which  to  all  appearance  he  could  not  do, 
was  to  originate  a  theme.  His  second  best  play,  accord- 
ing to  the  general  judgment,  his  best  as  I  venture  to 
think,  is  built,  with  an  audacity  to  which  only  great  genius 
or  great  folly  could  lead,  on  the  lines  of  Shakspeare.  His 
longest  and  most  ambitious  poem  follows,  with  a  surpris- 
ing faithfulness,  the  lines  of  Chaucer.  His  most  effective 
piece  of  tragic  description  is  a  versified  paraphrase — the 
most  magnificent  paraphrase,  perhaps,  ever  written  —  of 
the  prose  of  Boccaccio.  Even  in  his  splendid  satires  he  is 
rarely  successful,  unless  he  has  what  is  called  in  modern 
literary  slang  a  very  definite  "  peg  "  given  him  to  hang  his 


186  DRYDEN,  [coat. 

verse  upon.  Absalom  and  Achitophel  is  little  more  than 
a  loosely  connected  string  of  characters,  each  owing  no 
doubt  something,  and  what  is  more,  a  great  deal,  to  the 
poet,  but  originally  given  to,  and  not  invented  by  him. 
No  fashion  of  poetry  can  be  fart;her  aloof  from  Dryden's 
than  that  which,  as  in  the  case  of  Shelley,  spins  great 
poems  purely  out  of  its  own  brain.  His  strong  and  pow- 
erful mind  could  grind  the  com  supplied  to  it  into  the 
finest  flour,  but  the  com  must  always  be  supplied.  The 
exquisite  perfection  of  his  smaller  lyrics  forbids  us  to  set 
this  down  as  in  any  sense  a  drawback.  It  was  rather  a 
strong  inclination  to  the  one  oflBce  than  an  incapacity  for 
the  other.  What  is  more  to  the  purpose,  this  peculiarity 
is  very  closely  connected  with  Dryden's  fitness  for  the  posi- 
tion which  he  held.  The  man  who  is  to  control  the  peace- 
able revolution  of  a  literature,  who  is  to  shape  a  language 
to  new  uses,  and  help  writers  for  a  century  after  his  death 
to  vocabulary,  rhythm,  and  style,  in  prose  as  well  as  in 
verse,  is  perhaps  all  the  better  off  for  not  being  too  spon- 
taneous or  original  in  his  choice  of  subjects.  But  however 
this  may  be,  there  is  no  doubt  that  outward  circumstances 
always  had  a  great,  and  the  greatest,  influence  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  Dryden's  genius.  There  was  in  some  respects 
a  quality  about  this  genius  for  which  it  would  be  hard  to 
find  an  appropriate  name.  To  call  such  a  mind  and  such 
a  talent  as  Dryden's  parasitic,  would  be  ridiculous.  Yet  in 
any  lesser  man  the  same  characteristics  would  undoubtedly 
receive  that  appellation.  It  seems  always  to  have  been,  if 
not  necessary,  at  any  rate  satisfactory  to  him,  to  follow  some 
lines  which  had  been  already  l?id  down,  to  accept  a  depart- 
ure from  some  previous  work,  to  match  himself  closely  with 
some  existing  performance.  It  appears  almost  as  if,  in  his 
extraordinary  care  for  the  manner  of  his  poetical  work,  he 


vn.]  PERIOD  OF  TRANSLATION.  187 

felt  it  aa  advantage  to  be  relieved  of  much  trouble  about 
the  matter.  The  accusations  of  plagiarism  which  his  fran- 
tic enemies  constantly  brought  against  him  were,  in  any 
discreditable  sense,  as  idle  as  accusations  of  plagiarism 
usually  are;  but  they  had  considerably  more  foundation 
in  literal  fact  than  is  usual  with  such  accusations.  He 
had  a  habit  of  catching  up  phrases  sometimes  from  the 
works  of  men  to  whom  he  was  anything  but  compliment- 
ary, and  inserting  them,  much  improved,  it  is  true,  for  the 
most  part,  in  his  own  work.  I  have  come  across  a  curi- 
ous instance  of  this,  which  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen 
anywhere  noticed.  One  of  the  most  mortifying  incidents 
in  Dryden's  literary  career  was  the  already  mentioned  com- 
position by  his  rival,  though  not  exactly  enemy,  Crowne, 
of  the  Masque  of  Calisto.  There  seems  to  be  little  doubt, 
though  the  evidence  is  not  entirely  conclusive,  that 
Crowne's  share  in  this  work  was  due  to  Rochester,  who 
afterwards  made  himself  obnoxious  to  Dryden's  wrath  in 
a  still  more  unpardonable  manner.  Under  these  circum- 
stances we  certainly  should  not  expect  to  find  Dryden 
borrowing  from  Calisto.  Yet  a  whole  line  in  Macflecknoe, 
"  The  fair  Augusta  much  to  fears  inclined,"  is  taken,  with 
the  addition  of  the  adjective  and  the  adverb,  from  a  song 
of  Crowne's :  '*  Augusta  is  to  fears  inclined."  This  tem- 
perament made  the  work  of  translation  one  peculiarly 
suitable  to  Dryden.  He  had,  as  early  as  1684,  included 
several  translations  in  his  first  volume  of  Miscellanies,  and 
he  soon  perceived  that  there  was  plenty  of  demand  for 
more  of  the  same  ware.  Except  his  great  editor,  it  is 
doubtful  whether  any  man  of  letters  ever  knew  the  pub- 
lic taste  better  than  Dryden.  The  call  for  translations  of 
the  ancients  was  quite  natural  and  intelligible.  Direct 
classical  study  was  considerably  on  the  wane.  So  far,  in- 
K    7  10 


188  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

deed,  as  one  sex  was  concerned,  it  had  practically  gone 
out  of  fashion  altogether,  and  women  of  the  accomplish- 
ments of  Lady  Jane  Grey  or  Queen  Elizabeth  were  now 
thought  monsters.  Even  as  regards  men,  a  much  smaller 
proportion  of  the  upper  classes  were  able  to  read  the 
classics  in  the  original  than  had  once  been  the  case.  Busi- 
ness, court  life,  employment  in  a  standing  army  and  navy, 
and  many  other  distractions  called  men  early  away  from 
their  studies.  Yet  the  interest  felt,  or  supposed  to  be  felt, 
in  classical  literature  was  at  least  as  great  as  ever.  The 
classics  were  still  considered  as  literary  models  and  pat- 
terns; and  the  famous  controversy  between  the  ancients 
and  the  moderns  which  arose  about  this  time  helped  to 
inspire  a  desire  for  some  acquaintance  with  the  former  in 
the  easy,  fashionable  verse  which  Dryden  had  himself 
created.  In  1693  he  gave  to  the  world  the  whole  of  Per- 
sius  and  much  of  Juvenal,  the  latter  being  completed  by 
his  sons  and  some  friends.  In  the  same  year  some  more 
versions  of  Ovid  and  a  little  of  Homer  appeared ;  and  in 
1693  also  his  greatest  work  of  translation,  the  Virgil,  was 
begun.  This  was  the  only  one  of  Dryden's  works  for 
which  he  received  not  wholly  inadequate  remuneration, 
and  this  remuneration  was  attained  chiefly  by  the  method 
of  subscription.  Besides  these  authors,  his  translations 
include  extracts  from  Theocritus  and  Lucretius,  a  very  few 
Odes  of  Horace,  and  a  considerable  portion  of  the  Meta- 
morphoses of  Ovid,  which  appeared  last  of  all  in  the  well- 
known  volume  of  Fables.  The  merits  and  peculiarities  of 
Dryden's  translation  are  easily  estimated.  It  has  been  ex- 
cellently remarked  in  the  Preface  of  a  recent  prose  trans- 
lation of  the  Odyssey,  that  there  can  be  no  final  translation 
of  Homer,  because  the  taste  and  literary  habits  of  each  age 
demand  different  qualities  in  poetry.     There  is  no  need  to 


vn.]  PERIOD  OF  TRANSLATION.  189 

limit  this  remark  to  Homer,  or  indeed  to  poetry.  The 
work  of  the  translator  is  to  bridge  over  the  interval  be- 
tween his  author  and  his  public,  and  therefore  the  con- 
struction and  character  of  the  bridge  must  necessarily  dif- 
fer, according  to  the  instruction  and  demands  of  the  pub- 
lic. Dryden  could  not  give  exact  accuracy,  though  he 
was  by  no  means  such  a  bad  scholar  as  Pope.  But  his 
public  did  not  want  exact  accuracy,  and  would  not  have 
been  grateful  for  it.  He  did  not — whether  he  was  or  was 
not  able — give  them  classical  flavour  and  local  colour,  but 
for  these  they  would  have  been  still  less  grateful.  What 
they  wanted,  and  what  he  could  give  them  as  no  other 
man  then  living  could,  was  the  matter  of  the  original,  tol- 
erably unadulterated,  and  dressed  up  in  the  splendid  dic- 
tion and  nervous  verse  which  he  had  himself  taught  them 
to  love.  The  parallel  between  the  characteristics  of  the 
translation  and  the  simple  device  whereby  Jacob  Tonson 
strove  to  propitiate  the  ruling  powers  in  the  illustrations 
to  the  Virgil  is  indeed  obvious  enough.  Those  illustra- 
tions displayed  "old  Nassau's  hook-nosed  head  on  pious 
-Eneas'  shoulders."  The  text  itself  displayed  the  head  of 
Dryden  on  the  shoulders  of  Virgil. 

Even  before  the  Miscellany  of  1684,  translations  from 
Dryden's  hands  had  been  published.  There  appeared  in 
1680  a  version  of  Ovid's  ITeroideSf  to  which  he  gave  a 
preface  and  a  translation  of  two  epistles,  besides  collabo- 
rating with  Mulgrave  in  a  third.  The  preface  contains 
some  good  criticism  of  Ovid,  and  a  defence  of  the  man- 
ner of  translation  which  with  little  change  Dryden  himself 
constantly  employed.  This  he  defines  as  being  equally 
remote  from  verbal  fidelity  and  from  mere  imitation.  He 
also  lays  down  a  canon  as  to  the  necessary  equipment  of 
a  translator,  which,  if  it  could  be  despotically  enforced, 


140  DRYDEN.  [cha». 

would  be  a  remarkable  boon  to  reviewers.  "  No  man  is 
capable  of  translating  poetry  who,  besides  a  genius  to  that 
art,  is  not  a  master  both  of  his  author's  language  and  of 
his  own.  Nor  must  we  understand  the  language  only  of 
the  poet,  but  his  particular  turn  of  thoughts  and  expres- 
sions, which  are  the  characters  that  distinguish,  and  as  it 
were  individuate  him  from  all  other  writers."  These  first 
translations  are  interesting  because  they  are  the  first,  and 
for  the  sake  of  contrast  with  the  later  and  more  perfect 
work  of  the  same  kind.  In  some  respects  Ovid  was  an 
unfortunate  author  for  Dryden  to  select,  because  his  pe- 
culiarities tempted  a  relapse  into  the  faults  of  the  heroic- 
play  style.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Dryden's  practice  in 
the  heroic  play  fitted  him  very  well  to  translate  Ovid.  A 
few  lines  from  the  close  of  Canace  to  Macareus  may  be 
given  as  an  instance — 

"  jLnd  now  appeared  the  messenger  of  death ; 
Sad  were  his  looks,  and  scarce  he  drew  his  breath, 
To  say, '  Your  father  sends  you '  (with  that  word 
His  trembling  hands  presented  me  a  sword ;) 
'  Your  father  sends  you  this ;  and  lets  you  know 
That  your  own  crimes  the  use  of  it  will  show.' 
Too  well  I  know  the  sense  those  words  impart ; 
His  present  shall  be  treasured  in  my  heart. 
Are  these  the  nuptial  gifts  a  bride  receives  ? 
And  this  the  fatal  dower  a  father  gives  ? 
Thou  God  of  marriage,  shim  thy  own  disgrace, 
And  take  thy  torch  from  this  detested  place ! 
Instead  of  that,  let  furies  light  their  brands, 
And  fire  my  pile  with  their  infernal  hands ! 
With  happier  fortune  may  my  sisters  wed, 
Warned  by  the  dire  example  of  the  dead. 
For  thee,  poor  babe,  what  crime  could  they  pretend  ? 
How  could  thy  infant  innocence  offend  ? 


m.]  PERIOD  OF  TRANSLATION.  141 

A  guflt  there  was ;  but,  oh,  that  guilt  was  mine ! 
Thou  suflfer'st  for  a  sin  that  was  not  thine. 
Thy  mother's  grief  and  crime  !  but  just  enjoyed, 
Shewn  to  my  sight,  and  born  to  be  destroyed ! 
Unhappy  offspring  of  my  teeming  womb ! 
Dragged  headlong  from  thy  cradle  to  thy  tomb ! 
Thy  unoffending  life  I  could  not  save, 
Nor  weeping  could  I  follow  to  thy  grave ; 
Nor  on  thy  tomb  could  offer  my  shorn  hair. 
Nor  shew  the  grief  which  tender  mothers  bear. 
Yet  long  thou  shalt  not  from  my  arms  be  lost ; 
For  soon  I  will  o'ertake  thy  infant  ghost. 
But  thou,  my  love,  and  now  my  love's  despair. 
Perform  his  funerals  with  paternal  care ; 
His  scattered  limbs  with  my  dead  body  burn, 
And  once  more  join  us  in  the  pious  urn. 
If  on  my  wounded  breast  thou  droppest  a  tear, 
Think  for  whose  sake  my  breast  that  wound  aid  bear ; 
And  faithfully  my  last  desires  fulfil. 
As  I  perform  my  cruel  father's  will." 

The  Miscellanies  of  1684  and  1685  contained  a  con- 
siderable number  of  translations  from  many  different  au- 
thors, and  those  of  1693  and  1694  added  yet  more.  Al- 
together, besides  Ovid  and  Virgil,  specimens  of  Horace, 
Homer,  Theocritus,  and  Lucretius  are  in  these  translations, 
■while  the  more  ambitious  and  complete  versions  of  Juve- 
nal and  Virgil  swell  the  total  (in  Scott's  edition)  to  four 
volumes,  containing  perhaps  some  30,000  lines. 

It  could  hardly  be  expected  that  in  translating  authors 
of  such  different  characters,  and  requiring  in  a  poetical 
translator  so  many  different  gifts,  Dryden  should  be  al- 
together and  equally  successful.  The  Juvenal  and  the 
Virgil  deserve  separate  notice ;  the  others  may  be  briefly 
reviewed.  All  of  them  are,  according  to  the  general  con- 
ception of  translation  which  Dryden  had  formed,  decidedly 


142  DRtDEN.  [chap. 

loose,  and  by  no  means  adhere  to  the  original.  Indeed, 
Dryden  not  unfrequently  inserts  whole  lines  and  passages 
of  his  own,  a  proceeding  scarcely  to  be  reconciled  with  the 
just-mentioned  conception.  On  the  whole,  he  is  perhaps 
most  successful  with  Ovid.  The  versions  of  Horace  are 
few,  and  by  no  means  excessively  Horatian,  but  they  are 
almost  all  good  poems  in  Dryden's  statelier  rhythm.  The 
version  into  a  kind  of  Pindaric  of  the  twenty-ninth  ode  of 
the  third  book  is  particularly  good,  and  contains  the  well- 
known  paraphrase  of  resigno  quce  dedit  ("I  puff  the  pros- 
titute away  "),  which  was  such  a  favourite  with  Thackeray 
that  he  puts  it  into  the  mouth,  if  I  remember  rightly,  of 
more  than  one  of  his  characters.  Indeed,  the  three  last 
stanzas  of  this  are  well  worth  quotation — 


"  Happy  the  man,  and  happy  he  alone, 
He,  who  can  call  to-day  his  own ; 
He  who,  secure  within,  can  say, 
To-morrow  do  thy  worst,  for  I  have  lived  to-day ; 
Be  fair,  or  foul,  or  rain,  or  shine, 
The  joys  I  have  possessed,  in  spite  of  fate,  are  mine : 
Not  heaven  itself  upon  the  past  has  power, 
But  what  has  been,  has  been,  and  I  have  had  my  hour. 


"  Fortune,  that  with  malicious  joy 
Does  man,  her  slave,  oppress, 
Proud  of  her  office  to  destroy. 
Is  seldom  pleased  to  bless : 
Still  various  and  unconstant  still. 
But  with  an  inclination  to  be  il!, 
Promotes,  degrades,  delights  in  strife, 
And  makes  a  lottery  of  life. 
I  can  enjoy  her  while  she's  kind ; 
But  when  she  dances  in  the  wind. 


vii.]  PERIOD  OF  TRANSLATION.  143 

And  shakes  the  wings  and  will  not  stay, 

I  puff  the  prostitute  away : 

The  little  or  the  much  she  gave  is  quietly  resigned ; 

Content  with  poverty,  my  soul  I  arm, 

And  virtue,  though  in  rags,  will  keep  me  warm. 


"  What  is't  to  me, 
Who  never  sail  in  her  unfaithful  sea, 
If  storms  arise  and  clouds  grow  black, 
If  the  mast  split,  and  threaten  wreck  ?  ,^ 

Then  let  the  greedy  merchant  fear 

For  his  ill-gotten  gain ; 
And  pray  to  gods  that  will  not  hear. 
While  the  debating  winds  and  billows  bear 

His  wealth  into  the  main. 
For  me,  secure  from  fortune's  blows, 
Secure  of  what  I  cannot  lose, 

In  my  small  pinnace  I  can  sail. 
Contemning  all  the  blustering  roar ; 

And  running  with  a  merry  gale. 
With  friendly  stars  my  safety  seek. 
Within  some  little  winding  creek, 
And  see  the  storm  ashore." 

Least  successful  of  all,  perhaps,  are  the  Theocritean 
translations.  The  idyllic  spirit  was  not  one  of  the  many 
which  would  come  at  Dryden's  call,  and  certain  peculiari- 
ties of  Theocritus,  harmless  enough  in  the  original,  are 
accentuated  and  magnified  in  the  copy  in  a  manner  by  no 
means  pleasant.  A  thing  more  unfortunate  still  was  the 
selection  made  from  Lucretius.  No  one  was  ever  better 
qualified  to  translate  the  greatest  of  Roman  poets  than 
Dryden ;  and  had  he  given  us  the  whole,  it  would  probably 
have  been  the  best  verse  translation  in  the  language.  As 
it  is,  he  has  done  few  things  better  than  the  selections 
from  the  second  and  third  books ;  but  that  from  the  fourth 


144  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

has,  justly  or  unjustly,  tainted  the  whole  in  the  eyes  of 
most  critics.  It  reproduces  only  too  nakedly  the  original 
where  it  would  be  better  left  alone,  and  it  fails  almost 
entirely  even  to  attempt  the  sombre  fury  of  sentiment,  the 
inexpressible  agony  of  regret,  which  transfuse  and  redeem 
that  original  itself.  The  first  book  of  Homer  and  part  of 
the  sixth  were  avowedly  done  as  an  experiment,  and  it  is 
diflScult  to  be  very  sorry  that  the  experiment  was  not  pur- 
sued farther.  But  the  versions  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses 
are  very  good.  They,  however,  belong  more  properly  to 
the  next  period,  that  of  the  Fables. 

Dryden's  Juvenal  is  not  the  least  remarkable,  and  has 
been  in  some  ways  among  the  most  fortunate  of  his  works. 
It  is  stiU,  if  there  be  any  such,  the  standard  verse  transla- 
tion of  the  great  Roman  satirist,  and  this  although  much 
of  it  is  not  Dryden's.  His  two  elder  sons  assisted  him  in 
the  work,  as  well  as  some  friends.  But  the  first,  third, 
sixth,  tenth,  and  sixteenth  satires  are  his  own,  as  well  as 
the  whole  of  the  Persius.  The  book  was  published  in 
1693,  addressed  to  Dorset,  with  a  prefatory  essay  or  dis- 
course on  satire,  which  is  of  great  interest  and  value.  It 
is  somewhat  discursive,  as  is  Dryden's  wont,  and  the  erudi- 
tion which  it  contains  is,  as  is  also  his  wont,  anything 
but  invariably  accurate.  But  it  contains  some  precious 
autobiographic  information,  much  capital  criticism,  and 
some  of  the  best  passages  of  its  author's  prose.  He  dis- 
tinguishes between  his  own  idea  of  satire  and  Juvenal's, 
approaching  the  former  to  that  of  Horace,  which,  how- 
ever, is  scarcely  a  tenable  position.  But,  as  has  been  suf- 
ficiently pointed  out  already,  there  are  actually  many  and 
grave  differences  between  the  satire  of  Dryden  and  that 
of  Juvenal.  The  former  rarely  or  never  even  simulates 
indignation ;  the  latter  constantly  and  invariably  expresses 


vn.]  PERIOD  OF  TRANSLATION.  145 

it.  Still,  the  poetical  resemblances  between  the  two  men 
are  suflBciently  close  to  make  the  expectation  of  a  valuable 
version  pretty  confident,  nor  is  that  expectation  disap- 
pointed. For  a  wonder  Dryden  resists,  for  the  most  part, 
his  unhappy  te'ndency  to  exaggerate  the  coarseness  of  his 
subjects,  and  to  choose  their  coarsest  parts  in  preference 
to  others.  No  version  of  Juvenal  conld  be  other  than 
shocking  to  those  accustomed  only  to  modern  standards 
of  literary  language;  but  this  version  is  perhaps  less  so 
than  might  be  expected.  The  vigorous  stamp  of  Dryden's 
verse  is,  moreover,  admirably  suited  to  represent  the  orig- 
inal, and  the  chief  fault  noticeable  in  it — a  fault  not  un- 
common with  Dryden  in  translating  —  is  an  occasional 
lapse  into  an  unpoetical  vernacular,  with  the  object,  doubt- 
less, of  representing  the  text  more  vividly  to  English  read- 
ers. The  Persius  is  in  this  respect  better  than  the 
Juvenal,  though  the  peculiar  dryness  of  flavour  of  the 
singular  original  is  scarcely  retained. 

It  is  not  known  exactly  when  Dryden  first  conceived 
the  idea  of  working  up  the  scattered  fragments  of  Vir- 
gilian  translation  which  he  had  as  yet  attempted  into  a 
whole.  The  task,  however,  was  regularly  begun  either  at 
the  end  of  1693  or  the  beginning  of  1694,  and  it  occupied 
the  best  part  of  three  years.  A  good  deal  of  interest  was 
generally  felt  in  the  proceeding,  and  many  friends  helped 
the  poet  with  books  or  literary  assistance  of  one  kind  or 
another.  A  great  deal  of  it,  too,  was  written  during 
visits  to  hospitable  acquaintances  in  the  country.  Much 
of  it  was  doubtless  done  in  Northamptonshire  and  Hun- 
tingdonshire, at  the  houses  of  Mrs,  Creed  and  of  Driden  of 
Chesterton.  There  is,  indeed,  a  universally  repeated  tra- 
dition that  the  first  lines  were  written  with  a  diamond  on 
a  window  in  this  latter  mansion.    The  house  was  pallet 

V* 


146  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

down  some  seventy  years  ago,  and  a  curious  argument 
against  the  truth  of  the  legend  has  been  made  out  of  the 
fact  that  the  pane  was  not  preserved.  Demolition,  how- 
ever, is  not  usually  careful  of  its  prey.  Much  was  certainly 
written  at  Denham  Court,  in  Buckinghamshire,  the  seat  of 
Sir  William  Bowyer,  whose  gardens  are  commemorated  in 
a  note  on  the  Georgics.  The  seventh  book  of  the  ^neid 
was  done  at  Burleigh,  Dryden  having  long  had  some  con- 
nexion with  the  Exeter  family.  He  had,  it  may  be  men- 
tioned, always  been  fond  of  writing  in  the  country.  Ton- 
son,  the  publisher,  was  exceedingly  anxious  that  the  book 
should  be  dedicated  to  William  III,,  and  Dryden  speaks  as 
if  certain  anticipations  of  gain  had  been  held  out  to  him 
in  such  a  case.  But  he  was  unfalteringly  determined  to 
do  nothing  that  would  look  like  an  abandonment  of  his 
principles.  No  single  person  received  the  honor  of  the 
dedication ;  but  each  division  of  the  work  was  inscribed 
to  a  separate  patron.  The  Eclogues  fell  to  the  lot  of  Lord 
Clifford,  Dryden's  co-religionist,  and  son  of  the  "  fierce  and 
brave"  if  not  very  high-principled  member  of  the  Cabal 
to  whom  Amboyna  had  been  dedicated  long  before.  The 
Georgics  were  inscribed  to  Lord  Chesterfield,  a  dedication 
which,  with  Dryden's  subsequent  reception  and  acknowl- 
edgment of  a  present  from  Chesterfield,  is  at  least  deci- 
sive against  the  supposed  connexion  between  Lady  Eliza- 
beth and  the  Earl  having  been  known  to  the  poet.  Mul- 
grave,  now  Marquis  of  Normanby,  had  the  ^neid.  The 
book  was  published  in  July,  1697,  and  the  edition  was 
sold  off  almost  within  the  year.  Dryden  speaks  to  his 
sons,  who  were  now  at  Rome,  where  they  had  employment 
in  the  Pope's  household,  with  great  pleasure  of  its  success. 
It  is,  in  truth,  a  sufficiently  remarkable  book.  It  was,  no 
doubt,  rather  ironical  of  fate  to  assign  Homer  to  Pope, 


yii.]  PERIOD  OF  TRANSLATION.  147 

who  was  of  all  poets  the  least  Homeric,  and  Virgil  to  Dry- 
den,  than  whom  not  many  poets  have  been  more  un-Vir- 
gilian.  Pope  would  have  done  the  Mantuan,  whom  in 
many  things  he  resembles,  excellently.  Dryden  has  done 
him  excellently  too,  only  that  the  spirit  of  the  translation 
is  entirely  different  from  that  of  the  original.  To  say 
after  Wordsworth  that  Dryden  "  spoils"  all  the  best  pas- 
sages is  quite  unfair.  But  Wordsworth  had  no  special 
faculty  of  criticism  in  the  classical  languages,  and  was 
of  all  recorded  poets  the  most  niggardly  of  praise,  and 
the  most  prone  to  depreciation  of  others.  Of  the  three 
parts  as  wholes  the  Georgics  are  perhaps  done  best,  the 
Eclogues  worst,  the  -^neid  with  most  inequality.  Yet  the 
best  passages  of  the  epic  are  the  best,  beyond  all  doubt,  of 
the  whole  version.  A  certain  delicacy  of  touch,  which  Vir- 
gil especially  requires,  and  of  which  Dryden  was  suflScient- 
ly  master  in  his  more  original  work,  has  often  failed  him 
here,  but  the  bolder  and  more  masculine  passages  are  rep- 
resented with  a  great  deal  of  success.  Those  who  believe, 
as  I  confess  I  myself  believe,  that  all  translation  is  unsat- 
isfactory, and  that  poetical  translation  of  poetry  is  nearly 
impossible,  must  of  course  always  praise  such  work  as  this 
with  a  very  considerable  reservation.  But  when  that  res- 
ervation is  made,  there  remains  plenty  of  fairly  disposa- 
ble praise  for  this,  Dryden's  most  considerable  undertak- 
ing of  a  single  and  complete  kind.  The  older  translations 
have  so  far  gone  out  of  general  reading  in  England  that 
citation  is  in  this  case  almost  indispensable,  as  well  for  the 
purpose  of  showing  what  Dryden  actually  did  give  his 
readers  in  this  famous  book,  as  for  that  of  exhibiting  the 
progress  he  had  made  since  the  Ovid  of  sixteen  years  be- 
fore. The  passage  I  have  chosen  is  the  well-known  open- 
ing of  the  descent  into  hell  in  the  sixth  book,  which  has 


148  DRYDEN.  [chap, 

not  many  superiors  either  in  the  original  or  in  the  version. 
The  subject  was  one  that  Dryden  could  handle  well,  where- 
as his  Dido  sometimes  shows  traces  of  incongruity — 

"  She  said,  and  passed  along  the  gloomy  space ; 
The  prince  pursued  her  steps  with  equal  pace. 
Ye  realms,  yet  unrevealed  to  human  sight ! 
Ye  gods,  who  rule  the  regions  of  the  night ! 
Ye  gliding  ghosts !  permit  me  to  relate 
The  mystic  wonders  of  your  silent  state. 
Obscure  they  went  through  dreary  shades,  that  led 
Along  the  waste  dominions  of  the  dead. 
Thus  wander  travellers  in  woods  by  night. 
By  the  moon's  doubtful  and  malignant  light, 
When  Jove  in  dusky  clouds  involves  the  skies, 
And  the  faint  crescent  shoots  by  fits  before  their  eyes. 
Just  in  the  gate,  and  in  the  jaws  of  hell. 
Revengeful  Cares  and  sullen  Sorrows  dwell. 
And  pale  Diseases  and  repining  Age, 
Want,  Fear,  and  Famine's  unresisted  rage ; 
Here  Toils,  and  Death,  and  Death's  half-brother  Sleep, 
(Forms  terrible  to  view)  their  centry  keep ; 
With  anxious  Pleasures  of  a  guilty  mind, 
Deep  Frauds  before,  and  open  Force  behind ; 
The  Furies'  iron  beds  ;  and  Strife,  that  shakes 
Her  hissing  tresses,  and  unfolds  her  snakes. 
Full  in  the  midst  of  this  infernal  road, 
An  elm  displays  her  dusky  arms  abroad  : 
The  god  of  sleep  there  hides  his  heavy  head, 
And  empty  dreams  on  every  leaf  are  spread. 
Of  various  forms  unnumbered  spectres  more. 
Centaurs,  and  double  shapes,  besiege  the  door. 
Before  the  passage,  horrid  Hydra  stands, 
And  Briareus  with  all  his  hundred  hands ; 
Gorgons,  Geryon  with  his  triple  frame ; 
And  vain  Chimaera  vomits  empty  fiame. 
The  chief  unsheathed  his  shining  steel,  prepared, 
Though  seized  with  sudden  fear,  to  force  the  guard, 


vn.]  PERIOD  OF  TRANSLATION.  149 

Offering  his  brandished  weapon  at  their  face ; 
Had  not  the  Sibyl  stopped  bis  eager  pace, 
And  told  him  what  those  empty  phantoms  were — 
Forms  without  bodies,  and  impassive  air." 

Owing  to  the  existence  of  some  letters  to  Tonson, 
Walsh,  and  others,  more  is  known  about  the  pecuniary 
side  of  this  transaction  than  about  most  of  Dry  den's  mon- 
ey affairs.  Tonson  was  an  exceedingly  hard  bargain- 
driver,  and  there  is  extant  a  curious  letter  of  his,  in  which 
he  complains  of  the  number  of  verses  he  has  for  his 
money,  a  complaint  which,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come 
to  the  Fables,  was  at  any  rate  in  that  case  grossly  unjust. 
The  book  was  published  by  subscription,  as  Pope's  Homer 
was  subsequently,  but  the  terms  were  not  nearly  so  profit- 
able to  the  poet.  A  hundred  and  two  five -guinea  sub- 
scribers had  each  his  arms  printed  at  the  foot  of  one  of 
the  hundred  and  two  plates.  Others  who  subscribed  only 
two  guineas  merely  figured  in  a  list  of  names.  But  except 
a  statement  by  Dryden  in  a  letter  that  "the  thirty  shil- 
lings upon  every  book  remains  with  me,"  the  proportion  in 
which  the  subscriptions  were  divided  between  author  and 
publisher  is  unknown.  He  had,  however,  as  Malone  thinks, 
60/.  for  each  book  of  the  jEneid — as  Mr.  Christie  and  Mr. 
Hooper  think,  50/.  for  each  two  books — and  no  doubt 
there  was  some  similar  payment  for  the  Eclogues  and 
Georgics.  Altogether  Pope  heard  that  he  made  1200/.  by 
the  Virgil.  Presents  too  were  doubtless  sent  him  by  Clif- 
ford and  Mulgrave,  as  well  as  by  Chesterfield.  But  Ton- 
son's  payments  were  anything  but  satisfactory,  and  Lord 
Macaulay  has  extracted  much  evidence  as  to  the  state  of 
the  coinage  from  Dryden's  indignant  letters  on  the  subject. 
At  one  time  he  complains  that  in  some  money  changed 
for  Lady  Elizabeth  by  Tonson, "  besides  the  clipped  money 


160  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

there  were  at  least  forty  shillings  brass."  Then  he  ex- 
pects "  good  silver,  not  such  as  he  had  formerly,"  and  will 
not  take  gold,  of  course  because  of  the  renewed  risk  of 
bad  money  in  change.  Then  complaints  are  made  of  Ton- 
son  for  refusing  subscriptions  (which  shows  that  a  consid- 
erable portion  of  the  subscription-money  must  have  gone 
to  the  poet),  for  declining  to  pay  anything  for  notes, 
and  so  on.  The  most  complimentary  thing  to  Tonson  in 
the  correspondence  is  the  remark,  "All  of  your  trade  are 
sharpers,  and  you  not  more  than  others."  In  the  next 
letter,  however,  the  suspicion  as  to  the  goodness  of  Ton- 
son's  money  retunis — "If  you  have  any  silver  which  will 
go,  my  wife  will  be  glad  of  it."  Elsewhere  there  is  a  half- 
apologetic  allusion  to  a  "sharp"  letter  which  seems  not  to 
have  been  preserved.  But  Dryden  had  confidence  enough 
in  his  publisher  to  make  him  do  various  pieces  of  fiduciary 
business  for  him,  such  as  to  receive  his  rents  which  had 
been  brought  up  from  Northamptonshire  by  the  Towces- 
ter  carrier,  to  get  bills  to  pay  a  suspicious  watchmaker  who 
would  not  take  gold,  and  the  like.  He,  too,  was  the  in- 
termediary by  which  Dryden  sent  letters  to  his  sons  who 
were  now  in  Rome,  and  he  is  accused  of  great  carelessness 
and  perhaps  something  worse  in  connexion  with  these  let- 
ters. In  another  epistle  we  hear  that  "the  printer  is  a 
beast,"  an  accusation  which  it  is  to  be  feared  has  been 
repeated  frequently  since  by  impatient  authors.  After- 
wards, in  rather  Landorian  style — indeed,  there  are  resem- 
blances more  than  one  between  the  two,  and  Landor  was 
a  constant  admirer  of  Dryden — he  "  vows  to  God  that  if 
Everingham,  the  printer,  takes  not  care  of  this  impression, 
he  shall  never  print  anything  more  for  him."  These 
letters  to  Tonson  about  the  Virgil  and  the  Fables  are 
among  the  most  interesting  memorials  of  Dryden  that  we 


rn.]  PERIOD  OF  TRANSLATION.  161 

possess,  and  they  are,  with  those  to  Mrs.  Steward,  almost 
the  only  letters  of  his  which  give  much  personal  detail.' 
Perhaps  it  is  not  superfluous  to  say  that  allusions  in  them 
to  his  wife  are  frequent,  and  show  nothing  either  of  any 
ill-feeling  between  the  two,  or  of  any  neglect  of  household 
duty  on  her  part.  To  one  of  the  letters  to  his  sons  is  a 
long  postscript  from  Lady  Elizabeth,  in  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  orthography  that  even  English  epistolary  his- 
tory has  to  show,  but  affectionate  and  motherly  enough. 

During  the  period  which  the  last  two  chapters  cover, 
Dry  den  had  as  usual  not  failed  to  undertake  several  minor 
and  miscellaneous  literary  tasks.  Eleonora,m  1692,  was 
one  of  his  least  successful  pieces  in  a  literary  point  of  view, 
but  perhaps  the  most  successful  of  all  as  a  piece  of  journey- 
work.  The  poem  is  an  elegy  on  the  Countess  of  Abing- 
don ;  it  was  ordered  by  her  husband,  and  paid  for  munifi- 
cently. There  are  but  377  verses,  and  the  fee  was  five 
hundred  guineas,  or  on  Tonson's  method  of  calculation 
some  seven  or  eight-and-twenty  shillings  a  line — a  rate 
which  would  have  seemed  to  Jacob  sinful,  as  encouraging 
poets  to  be  extortionate  with  honest  tradesmen.  The 
piece  is  laboured  and  ill  -  sustained.  If  it  deserved  five 
hundred  guineas,  the  Anne  Killigrew  ode  would  certainly 
have  been  cheap  at  five  thousand.  But  not  long  after- 
wards a  poem  to  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  which  may  or  may 
not  have  been  exchanged  for  something  of  the  other  ar- 
tist's craft,  showed  that  Dryden  had  in  no  way  lost  his  fac- 
ility of  splendid  flattery.  Perhaps  before  and  perhaps  af- 
ter this  came  the  incomparable  address  to  Congreve  on  the 

'  AB,for  instance,  how  (he  ia  writing  from  Northamptonshire)  a 
party  of  benighted  strangers  came  in,  and  he  had  to  give  up  his  bed 
to  them,  to  which  bed  they  would  have  gone  supperless,  had  he  not 
**  taken  a  very  lusty  pike  that  day." 


162  DRYDEN.  [chap,  vxl 

failure  of  the  Double  Dealer,  which  is  and  deserves  to 
be  one  of  Diy den's  best -known  works.  Congreve  and 
Southern,  the  leading  comic  writer  and  the  leading  tragic 
writer  of  the  younger  generation,  were  among  the  princi- 
pal of  the  band  of  sons  (in  Ben  Jonson's  phrase)  whom 
Dryden  had  now  gathered  round  him.  In  one  of  his  let- 
ters there  is  a  very  pleasant  picture  of  the  two  young  men 
coming  out  four  miles  to  meet  the  coach  as  he  returned 
from  one  of  his  Northamptonshire  visits,  and  escorting  him 
to  his  house.  This  was  in  1695,  and  in  the  same  year 
Dryden  brought  out  a  prose  translation  of  Du  Fresnoy's 
Art  of  Fainting,  with  a  prefatory  essay  called  a  "  Parallel 
of  Poetry  and  Painting."  There  is  not  very  much  in- 
trinsic value  in  this  parallel,  but  it  has  an  accidental  in- 
terest of  a  curious  kind.  Dryden  tells  us  that  it  occupied 
him  for  twelve  mornings,  and  we  are  therefore  able  to  cal- 
culate his  average  rate  of  working,  since  neither  the  mat- 
ter nor  the  manner  of  the  work  betokens  any  extraordina- 
ry care,  nor  could  it  have  required  extraordinary  research. 
The  essay  would  fill  between  thirty  and  forty  pages  of  the 
size  of  this  present.  Either  in  1695  or  in  1696  the  poet 
also  wrote  a  life  of  Lucian,  intended  to  accompany  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Dialogues  made  by  various  hands.  This  too, 
which  did  not  appear  till  after  the  author's  death,  was 
something  of  a  "  pot-boiler ;"  but  the  character  of  Dryden's 
prose  work  was  amply  redeemed  by  the  "  Discourse  on 
Epic  Poetry,"  which  was  the  form  that  the  dedication  of 
the  ^neid  to  Mulgrave  took.  This  is  not  unworthy  to 
rank  with  the  "  Essay  on  Dramatic  Poesy  "  and  the  "  Dis- 
course on  Satire." 


CHAPTER  Vm. 

THE    FABLES. 

It  was  beyond  a  doubt  his  practice  in  translation,  and  the 
remarkable  success  that  attended  it,  which  suggested  to 
Dryden  the  last,  and  one  of  the  most  singular,  but  at  the 
same  time  the  most  brilliantly  successful  of  all  his  poetical 
experiments.  His  translations  themselves  were  in  many 
cases  rather  paraphrases  than  translations.  He  now  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  a  kind  of  composition  which  was  to  be 
avowedly  paraphrase.  With  the  unfailing  catholicity  of 
taste  which  is  one  of  his  finest  literary  characteristics,  he 
had  always  avoided  the  ignorant  contempt  with  which  the 
age  was  wont  to  look  on  mediaeval  literature.  Even  Cow- 
ley, we  are  told,  when  requested  by  one  of  his  patrons  to 
give  an  opinion  on  Chaucer,  confessed  that  he  could  not 
relish  him.  If,  when  he  planned  an  Arthurian  epic,  Dry- 
den had  happened  to  hit  on  the  idea  of  "  transversing " 
Mallory,  we  might  have  had  an  additional  star  of  the  first 
magnitude  in  English  literature,  though  his  ability  to  pro- 
duce a  wholly  original  epic  may  be  doubted.  At  sixty- 
seven,  writing  hard  for  subsistence,  he  could  not  think  of 
any  such  mighty  attempt  as  this.  But  he  took  certain 
tales  of  Chaucer,  and  certain  novels  of  Chaucer's  roaster, 
Boccaccio,  and  applied  his  system  to  them.     The  result 

was  the  book  of  poems  to  which,  including  as  it  did  many 
L  1] 


164  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

Ovidian  translations,  and  much  other  verse,  he  gave  the 
aame  of  Fables,  using  that  word  in  its  simple  sense  of  sto- 
ries. It  is  not  surprising  that  this  book  took  the  town 
by  storm.  Enthusiastic  critics,  even  at  the  beginning  of 
the  present  century,  assigned  to  Theodore  and  Honoria  "  a 
place  on  the  very  topmost  shelf  of  English  poetry."  Such 
arrangements  depend,  of  course,  upon  the  definition  of  poe- 
try itself.  But  I  venture  to  think  that  it  would  be  almost 
suflBcient  case  against  any  such  definition,  that  it  should 
exclude  the  finest  passages  of  the  Fables  from  a  position  a 
little  lower  than  that  which  Ellis  assigned  to  them.  It  so 
happens  that  we  are,  at  the  present  day,  in  a  position  to 
put  Dryden  to  a  specially  crucial  test  which  his  contempo- 
raries were  unable  to  apply.  To  us  Chaucer  is  no  longer 
an  ingenious  and  intelligent  but  illegible  barbarian.  We 
read  the  Canterbury  Tales  with  as  much  relish,  and  with 
nearly  as  little  diflBculty,  as  we  read  Spenser,  or  Milton,  or 
Pope,  or  Byron,  or  our  own  living  poets.  Palamon  and 
Arcite  has,  therefore,  to  us  the  drawback — if  drawback  it 
be — of  being  confronted  on  equal  terms  with  its  original. 
Yet  I  venture  to  say  that,  except  in  the  case  of  those  un- 
fortunate persons  whose  only  way  of  showing  appreciation 
of  one  thing  is  by  depreciation  of  something  else,  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  KnigMs  Tale  injures  Dryden's  work 
hardly  at  all.  There  could  not  possibly  be  a  severer  test 
of  at  least  formal  excellence  than  this. 

The  Fables  were  published  in  a  folio  volume  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  contract  with  Tonson,  was  to  contain  10,000 
verses.  The  payment  was  300^.,  of  which  250  guineas 
were  paid  down  at  the  time  of  agreement,  when  three- 
fourths  of  the  stipulated  number  of  lines  were  actually 
handed  over  to  the  publisher.  On  this  occasion,  at  least, 
JacQb  bad  not  to  complain  of  an  unduly  small  considera' 


VIII.]  THE  FABLES.  1S6 

tion.  For  Dry  den  gave  him  not  2500,  bat  nearly  5000 
verses  more,  without,  as  far  as  is  known,  receiving  any  in- 
crease of  his  fee.  The  remainder  of  the  300/.  was  not  to 
be  paid  till  the  appearance  of  a  second  edition,  and  this 
did  not  actually  take  place  until  some  years  after  the  poet's 
death.  Pope's  statement,  therefore,  that  Dryden  received 
"  sixpence  a  line  "  for  his  verses,  though  not  formally  ac- 
curate, was  suflBcicntly  near  the  truth.  It  is  odd  that  one 
of  the  happiest  humours  of  Tom  the  First  (Shadwell)  oc- 
curring in  a  play  written  long  before  he  quarrelled  with 
Dryden,  concerns  this  very  practice  of  payment  by  line. 
In  the  Sullen  Lovers  one  of  the  characters  complains  that 
his  bookseller  has  refused  him  twelvepence  a  line,  when  the 
intrinsic  worth  of  some  verses  is  at  least  ten  shillings,  and 
all  can  be  proved  to  be  worth  three  shillings  "  to  the  veri- 
est Jew  in  Christendom."  So  that  Tonson  was  not  alone 
in  the  adoption  of  the  method.  As  the  book  finally  ap- 
peared, the  Fables  contained,  besides  prefatory  matter  and 
dedications,  five  pieces  from  Chaucer  {Palamon  and  Arcite, 
the  Cock  and  the  Fox,  the  Flower  and  the  Leaf,  the  Wife 
of  Bathes  Tale,  the  Character  of  a  Good  Parson),  three 
from  Boccaccio  {Sigismonda  and  Guiscardo,  Theodore  and 
Honoria,  Cymon  and  Iphigenia),  the  first  book  of  the  Iliad, 
some  versions  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  in  continuation  of 
others  previously  published,  an  Epistle  to  John  Driden,  the 
second  St.  Cecilia  Ode,  commonly  called  Alexander's  Feast, 
and  an  Epitaph. 

The  book  was  dedicated  to  the  Duke  of  Ormond  in  a 
prose  epistle,  than  which  even  Dryden  never  did  anything 
better.  It  abounds  with  the  fanciful  expressions,  just  stop- 
ping short  of  conceit,  which  were  such  favourites  with  him, 
and  which  he  managed  perhaps  better  than  any  other  writ- 
er.    He  holds  of  the  Ormond  family,  he  tells  the  Duke, 


166  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

by  a  tenure  of  dedications,  having  paid  that  compliment  to 
his  Grace's  grandfather,  the  great  Duke  of  Ormond,  and 
having  celebrated  Ossory  in  memorial  verses.  Livy,  Pub- 
licola,  and  the  history  of  Peru  are  brought  in  perhaps 
somewhat  by  the  head  and  shoulders ;  but  this  was  sim- 
ply the  fashion  of  the  time,  and  the  manner  of  the  doing 
fully  excused  it.  Even  this  piece,  however,  falls  short,  in 
point  of  graceful  flattery,  of  the  verse  dedication  of  Pala- 
mon  and  Arcite  to  the  Duchess.  Between  the  two  is  the 
preface,  which  contains  a  rather  interesting  history  of  the 
genesis  of  the  Fables.  After  doing  the  first  book  of 
Homer  "as  an  essay  to  the  whole  work,"  it  struck  Dryden 
that  he  would  try  some  of  the  passages  on  Homeric  sub- 
jects in  the  Metamorphoses,  and  these  in  their  turn  led  to 
others.  When  he  had  sufficiently  extracted  the  sweets  of 
Ovid, "  it  came  into  my  mind  that  our  old  English  poet 
Chaucer  in  many  things  resembled  him ;"  and  then,  "  as 
thoughts,  according  to  Mr.  Hobbes,  have  always  some  con- 
nexion," he  was  led  to  think  of  Boccaccio.  The  preface 
continues  with  critical  remarks  upon  all  three  authors  and 
their  position  in  the  history  of  their  respective  literatures, 
remarks  which,  despite  some  almost  unavoidable  ignorance 
on  the  writer's  part  as  to  the  early  condition  and  mutual 
relationship  of  modern  languages,  are  still  full  of  interest 
and  value.  It  ends  a  little  harshly,  but  naturally  enough, 
in  a  polemic  with  Blackmore,  Milboura,  and  Collier.  Not 
much  need  be  said  about  the  causes  of  either  of  these  de- 
bates. Macaulay  has  told  the  Collier  story  well,  and,  on 
the  whole,  fairly  enough,  though  he  is  rather  too  compli- 
mentary to  the  literary  value  of  Collier's  work.  That 
redoubtable  divine  had  all  the  right  on  his  side,  beyond  a 
doubt,  but  he  sometimes  carried  his  argument  a  good  deal 
too  far.    Dryden,  however,  could  not  defend  himself,  and 


Tin.]  THE  FABLES.  167 

he  knew  this,  and  did  not  attempt  it,  though  he  could  not 
always  refrain,  now  and  afterwards,  from  indulging  in  lit- 
tle flings  at  Collier.  Blackmore  had  two  causes  of  quarrel 
with  Dryden — one  the  same  as  Collier's,  the  other  a  polit- 
ical one,  the  poetical  knight  being  a  staunch  Whig.  Mil- 
bourn  was  an  obscure  country  clergyman,  who  had  at  one 
time  been  a  great  admirer  of  Dryden,  as  a  letter  of  his  still 
extant,  in  which  he  orders  the  poet's  works  to  be  sent  to 
him,  shows.  He  had,  however,  fallen  foul  of  the  Virgil, 
for  which  he  received  from  Dryden  due  and  perhaps  more 
than  due  castigation. 

Enough  has  been  already  said  of  the  translations  of 
Homer  and  Ovid.  The  latter,  however,  are,  as  far  as  mere 
verse  goes,  among  the  best  of  all  the  translations.  Pala- 
mon  and  Arcite,  however,  and  all  the  other  contents  of  the 
book  are  of  a  very  different  order  of  interest.  Dryden  had 
an  extreme  admiration  for  this  story,  which  as  the  subject 
for  an  epic  he  thought  as  good  as  either  Homer's  or  Vir- 
gil's. Nowadays  most  people  have  left  off  considering 
the  technical  value  of  different  subjects,  which  is  no  doubt 
a  misfortune.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  legend,  with 
its  interesting  incidents,  its  contrast  of  character,  its  revo- 
lutions, and  so  forth,  does  actually  come  very  near  to  the 
perfect  idea  of  the  artificial  epic.  The  comparative  nullity 
of  the  heroine  would  have  been  thought  no  drawback  in 
ancient  art.  Dryden  has  divided  the  story  into  three 
books,  and  has,  as  usual,  paraphrased  with  the  utmost  free- 
dom, but  he  has  kept  closer  to  the  dimensions  of  the  orig- 
inal than  is  his  wont.  His  three  books  do  not  much  ex- 
ceed the  length  of  the  original  tale.  In  the  different 
parts,  however,  he  has  used  his  own  discretion  in  amplify- 
ing or  contracting  exactly  as  he  thinks  proper,  and  the 
comparison  of  different  passages  with  the  original  thus 


168  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

brings  out  in  a  manifold  way  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  two 
writers.  Perhaps  this  is  nowhere  more  marked  than  in 
the  famous  description  of  the  Temple  of  Mars.  As  far 
as  the  temple  itself  goes,  Dryden  has  the  upper  hand,  but 
he  is  beaten  when  it  comes  to  *'  the  portraiture  which  was 
upon  the  wall."  Sometimes  he  has  simply  adopted  Chau- 
cer's very  words,  sometimes  he  has  done  otherwise,  and 
then  he  has  almost  always  done  worse.  The  "  smiler  with 
the  knife  under  the  cloak"  is  very  inadequately  replaced 
by  three  whole  lines  about  hypocrisy.     If  the  couplet — 

"Amiddes  of  the  temple  sate  Mischance, 
And  Discomfort  and  sory  Countenance," 

be  contrasted  with 

"  In  midst  of  all  the  dome  Misfortune  sate, 
And  gloomy  Discontent  and  fell  Debate," 

the  comparatively  otiose  epithets  which  in  the  next  cen- 
tury were  to  be  the  curse  of  the  style,  strike  the  eye  and 
ear  very  forcibly.  Indeed,  in  this  most  finished  work  of 
Dryden's  nothing  is  easier  than  to  see  the  strength  and  the 
weakness  of  the  method  he  had  introduced.  In  his  hands 
it  turns  almost  always  to  strength.  But  in  thus  boldly 
bringing  his  work  side  by  side  with  Chaucer's,  he  had 
indicated  the  divergence  which  was  to  be  carried  farther 
and  farther  by  his  followers,  until  the  mot  'pro'pre  was  lost 
altogether  in  a  washy  sea  of  elegant  epithets  and  flowing 
versification.  That  time,  however,  was  far  off,  or  might 
have  seemed  to  be  far  off,  to  a  reader  of  the  Fables.  It  is 
only  when  Chaucer  is  actually  compared  that  the  defects, 
or  rather  the  possibilities  of  defect,  rise  to  the  eye.  If 
Palamon  and  Arcite  be  read  by  itself,  it  is  almost  entirely 
delightful,  and,  as  has  been  said  already,  it  will  even  bear 
the  strain  of  comparison.     For  the  loss  is  counterbalanced 


Tin.3  THE  FABLES.  119 

by  gain,  gain  of  sustained  strength  and  greater  perfection 
of  workmanship,  even  though  we  may  know  well  enough 
that  Dryden's  own  idea  of  Chaucer's  shortcomings  in  versi- 
fication was  a  mere  delusion. 

The  Nun's  PriesVs  Tale  was  also  not  very  much  ex- 
tended, though  it  was  considerably  altered  in  Dryden's 
version,  entitled  The  Cock  and  the  Fox.  Dryden's  fond- 
ness for  the  beast-story  had,  as  we  have  seen  already,  drawn 
upon  him  the  reprehension  of  Messrs.  Prior  and  Montague, 
critics  of  severe  and  cultivated  taste.  It  has  just  been  sug- 
gested that  a  great  loss  has  been  sustained  by  his  not  hav- 
ing taken  the  fancy  to  transverse  some  Arthurian  stories. 
In  the  same  way,  if  he  had  known  the  original  Roman  de 
JRenart,  he  would  doubtless  have  made  good  use  of  it.  The 
Cock  and  the  Fox  itself  is  inferior  to  many  of  the  branches 
of  the  old  tree,  but  it  has  not  a  few  merits,  and  the  story 
of  the  two  friends  is  one  of  the  very  best  things  of  the 
kind.  To  this  Dryden  has  done  ample  justice.  But  in 
the  original  not  the  least  attractive  part  is  the  solemn  pro- 
fusion of  learned  names  and  citations  characteristic  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  which  the  translator  has  in  some  cases 
thought  it  better  to  omit.  It  may  not  be  quite  clear 
whether  Chaucer,  who  generally  had  a  kind  of  satirical  un- 
dercurrent of  intention  in  him,  was  serious  in  putting  these 
into  the  mouths  of  Partlet  and  Chanticleer  or  not,  but  still 
one  misses  them.  On  the  other  hand,  Dryden  has  made 
the  most  of  the  astrological  allusions;  for  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  he  had  a  decided  hankering  after  astrology, 
like  many  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  century.  Of  this 
there  is  evidence  quite  apart  from  Mrs.  Thomas's  stories, 
which  also  deal  with  the  point. 

The  third  of  Dryden's  Chaucerian  versions  is  one  of  the 
most  charming  of  all,  and  this,  though  the  variations  from 


160  DRYDEN.  [chat. 

the  original  are  considerable,  and  though  that  original  is 
itself  one  of  the  most  delightful  works  of  the  kind.'  I 
have  read,  perhaps  as  much  as  most  Englishmen,  the  French 
fourteenth-century  poetry  on  which  so  much  of  Chaucer's 
is  modelled,  but  I  hardly  know  either  in  French  or  English 
a  poem  more  characteristic,  and  more  delightfully  charac- 
teristic of  the  fourteenth  century  than  the  Flower  and  the 
Leaf.  The  delight  in  a  certain  amiable  kind  of  natural 
beauty,  the  transference  of  the  signs  and  symbols  of  that 
beauty  to  the  service  of  a  fantastic  and  yet  not  unnatural 
poetry  of  love,  the  introduction  of  abstract  and  supernatu- 
ral beings  to  carry  out,  sometimes  by  allegory  and  some- 
times by  personification,  the  object  of  the  poet,  are  all  ex- 
emplified in  this  little  piece  of  some  600  or  600  lines,  in 
a  manner  which  it  would  be  hard  to  match  in  Froissart  or 
Guillaume  de  Machault.  Yet  Dryden  has  asserted  his 
power  of  equalling  the  virtue  of  the  original  in  what  may 
be  called  an  original  translation.  The  two  poems  differ 
from  one  another  considerably  in  details  of  machinery  and 
imagery.  Chaucer  is  happier  in  his  descriptions  of  nature, 
Dryden  in  the  representation  of  the  central  personages. 
But  both  alike  have  the  power  of  transporting.  Even  now, 
when  so  much  of  his  language  and  machinery  have  become 
hackneyed,  Dryden  can  exert  this  power  on  those  who  are 
well  acquainted  with  mediaeval  Uterature,  who  have  felt  its 
strange  fascination,  and  the  ease  with  which  it  carries  off 
the  reader  into  unfamiliar  and  yet  delightful  lands,  where 
nothing  is  disturbing  and  unreasonable,  and  yet  everything 
is  surprising  and  unhackneyed.  How  much  more  strongly 
this  power  must  have  been  exerted  on  a  singularly  prosaic 
age,  in  which  the  majority  of  persons  would,  like  Prior 

'  I  do  not  here  concern  myself  with  the  hypothesis  of  the  spuri* 
ouaness  of  this  poem. 


Tin.]  THE  FABLES.  161 

and  Montague,  have  cast  aside  as  nonsense  worthy  only  of 
children  the  gracious,  shadowy  imaginations  of  raedisevai 
thought,  we  in  the  nineteenth  century  can  hardly  put  our- 
selves in  the  condition  to  estimate.  But  it  must  always 
remain  one  of  Dryden's  highest  titles  to  fame  that  he  was 
able  thus  to  make  extremes  meet.  He  seems,  indeed,  to 
have  had  not  only  the  far  from  ordinary  faculty  of  recog- 
nising good  literature  wherever  he  met  it,  but  the  quite  ex- 
traordinary faculty  of  making  other  people  recognise  it  too 
by  translating  it  into  the  language  which  they  were  capa- 
ble of  comprehending.     A  passage  may  be  worth  quoting : 

"  To  this  the  dame  replied :  '  Fair  daughter,  know 
That  what  you  saw  was  all  a  fairy  show ; 
And  all  those  airy  shapes  you  now  behold 
Were  human  bodies  once,  and  clothed  with  earthly  mould. 
Our  souls,  not  yet  prepared  for  upper  light, 
Till  doomsday  wander  in  the  shades  of  night ; 
This  only  holiday  of  all  the  year, 
We,  privileged,  in  sunshine  may  appca;* ; 
With  songs  and  dance  we  celebrate  the  day, 
And  with  due  honours  usher  in  the  May. 
At  other  times  we  reign  by  night  alone, 
And  posting  through  the  skies  pursue  the  moon ; 
But  when  the  morn  arises,  none  are  found. 
For  cruel  Demogorgon  walks  the  round, 
And  if  he  finds  a  fairy  lag  in  light. 
He  drives  the  wretch  before,  and  lashes  into  night. 

" '  All  courteous  are  by  kind  ;  and  ever  proud 
With  friendly  offices  to  help  the  good. 
In  every  land  we  have  a  larger  space 
Than  what  is  known  to  you  of  mortal  race ; 
Where  we  with  green  adorn  our  fairy  bowers. 
And  even  this  grove,  unseen  before,  is  ours. 
Know  farther,  every  lady  clothed  in  white. 
And  crowned  with  oak  and  laurel  every  knight, 
8 


162  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

Are  servants  to  the  Leaf,  by  liveries  known 

Of  innocence ;  and  I  myself  am  one. 

Saw  you  not  her  so  graceful  to  behold, 

In  white  attire,  and  crowned  with  radiant  gold  ? 

The  sovereign  lady  of  our  land  is  she, 

Diana  called,  the  queen  of  chastity ; 

And,  for  the  spotless  name  of  maid  she  bears, 

That  Affnus  casfus  in  her  hand  appears ; 

And  all  her  train,  with  leafy  chaplets  crowned. 

Were  for  unblamed  virginity  renowned ; 

But  those  the  chief  and  highest  in  command 

Who  bear  those  holy  branches  in  their  hand, 

The  knights  adorned  with  laurel  crowns  are  they, 

Whom  death  nor  danger  ever  could  dismay, 

Victorious  names,  who  made  the  world  obey : 

Who,  while  they  lived,  in  deeds  of  arms  excelled, 

And  after  death  for  deities  were  held. 

But  those  who  wear  the  woodbine  on  their  brow, 

Were  knights  of  love,  who  never  broke  their  vow  ; 

Firm  to  their  plighted  faith,  and  ever  free 

From  fears,  and  fickle  chance,  and  jealousy. 

The  lords  and  ladies,  who  the  woodbine  bear, 

As  true  as  Tristram  and  Isotta  were.' " 

Why  Dry  den  selected  the  Wife  of  Bathes  Tale  among 
his  few  translations  from  Chaucer,  it  is  not  very  easy  to 
say.  It  is  a  suflBciently  harmless  fabliau,  but  it  cannot  be 
said  to  come  up  in  point  of  merit  to  many  others  of  the 
Canterbury  Tales.  The  enemies  of  our  poet  would  doubt- 
less say  that  he  selected  it  because  of  the  unfavourable 
opinions  as  to  womankind  which  it  contains.  But  then 
those  same  enemies  would  find  it  diflBcult  to  say  why  he 
did  not  choose  instead  the  scandalous  prologue  which 
unites  opinions  of  womankind  at  least  as  unfavourable 
with  other  matter  of  the  sort  which  hostile  criticism  sup- 
poses to  have  been  peculiarly  tempting  to  Dryden.  In  the 
actual  tale  as  given  in  the  Fables  there  is  some  alloy  of 


VIII.]  THE  FABLES.  168 

this  kind,  but  nothing  that  could  be  at  all  shocking  to  the 
age.  The  length  of  the  story  is  in  proportion  more  am- 
plified than  is  the  case  with  the  others.  Probably  the 
argumentative  gifts  of  the  old  hag  who  turned  oat  not  to 
be  an  old  hag  attracted  Dryden,  for  he  was  always  at  his 
best,  and  must  have  known  that  he  was  always  at  his  best, 
in  passages  of  the  kind.  The  pleading  of  the  crone  is  one 
of  his  best  efforts.  A  certain  desultoriness  which  is  to 
be  found  in  Chaucer  is  changed  into  Dryden's  usual  chain 
of  serried  argument,  and  it  is  much  less  surprising  in  the 
translation  than  in  the  original  that  the  knight  should 
have  decided  to  submit  at  once  to  such  a  she-lawyer.  But 
the  "  wife  "  herself  has  something  to  complain  of  Dryden. 
Her  fancy  for  widowhood  is  delicately  enough  put  in  the 
original : 

"  [Sende]  grace  to  overlive  them  that  we  wed." 

Dryden  makes  it  much  blunter : 

"  May  widows  wed  as  often  as  they  can, 
And  ever  for  the  better  change  their  man." 

The  Character  of  a  Good  Parson  admits  itself  to  be 
"enlarged"  from  Chaucer,  and,  indeed,  the  termination, 
to  the  extent  of  some  forty  lines,  is  wholly  new,  and  writ- 
ten with  special  reference  to  the  circumstances  of  the 
time.  To  this  character  there  is  a  pleasant  little  story 
attached.  It  seems  from  a  letter  to  Pepys  that  the  diarist 
had  himself  recommended  the  character  in  the  original  to 
Dryden's  notice.  When  the  verses  were  done,  the  poet 
told  Pepys  of  the  fact,  and  proposed  to  bring  them  for 
his  inspection.  The  answer  contained  a  sentence  which 
displays  a  much  greater  antipathy  to  parsons  than  that 
which,  if  we  may  believe  Lord  Macaulay,  who  perhaps 


164  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

borrowed  the  idea  from  Stillingfleet  or  Collier,  Dryden 
himself  felt.  Pepys  remarks  that  he  hopes  "  from  your 
copy  of  this  good  parson  to  fancy  some  amends  made  me 
for  the  hourly  offence  I  bear  with  from  the  sight  of  so 
many  lewd  originals."  What  particular  trouble  Pepys 
had  to  bear  at  the  hands  of  the  lewd  originals  it  would 
be  hard  to  say.  But — time-server  as  he  had  once  been — 
he  was  in  all  probability  suflBciently  Jacobite  at  heart  to 
relish  the  postscript  in  Dryden's  version.  This  transfers 
the  circumstances  of  the  expulsion  of  the  Nonjurors  to  the 
days  of  Richard  the  Second  and  Henry  of  Bolingbroke. 
Nor,  had  there  still  been  a  censorship  of  the  press,  is  it  at 
all  probable  that  this  postscript  would  have  been  passed  for 
publication.    The  following  verses  are  sufficiently  pointed : 

"  Conquest,  an  odious  name,  was  laid  aside ; 
When  all  submitted,  none  the  battle  tried. 
The  senseless  plea  of  right  by  providence 
Was  by  a  flattering  priest  invented  since. 
And  lasts  no  longer  than  the  present  sway. 
But  justifies  the  next  which  comes  in  play. 
The  people's  right  remains ;  let  those  who  dare 
Dispute  their  power  when  they  the  judges  are." 

The  character  itself  is  also  very  much  enlarged ;  so  much 
so  that  the  original  can  only  be  said  to  have  furnished  the 
heads  for  it.     Dryden  has  done  few  better  things. 

The  selections  from  Boccaccio,  like  those  from  Chaucer, 
may  or  may  not  have  been  haphazard.  The  first,  at  any 
rate,  which  has  been,  as  a  rule,  the  worst  thought  of,  ex- 
plains itself  sufficiently.  The  story  of  Tancred  and  Sigis- 
munda,  perhaps,  afforded  room  for  "  loose  descriptions ;" 
it  certainly  afforded  room  for  the  argument  in  verse  of 
which  Dryden  was  so  great  a  master.  Although  the  hints 
of  the  original  have  been  somewhat  coarsely  amplified,  the 


Tin.]  THE  FABLES.  165 

speech  of  Sigismunda  is  still  a  very  noble  piece  of  verse, 
and  her  final  address  to  her  husband's  heart  almost  better. 
Here  is  a  specimen : 

" '  Thy  praise  (and  thine  was  then  the  public  voice) 
First  recommended  Guiscard  to  my  choice : 
Directed  thus  by  thee,  I  looked,  and  found 
A  man  I  thought  deserving  to  be  crowned ; 
First  by  my  father  pointed  to  my  sight, 
Nor  less  conspicuous  by  his  native  light ; 
His  mind,  his  mien,  the  features  of  his  face, 
Excelling  all  the  rest  of  human  race : 
These  were  thy  thoughts,  and  thou  couldst  judge  aright. 
Till  interest  made  a  jaundice  in  thy  sight. 
Or,  should  I  grant  thou  didst  not  rightly  see, 
Then  thou  wert  first  deceived,  and  I  deceived  by  thee. 
But  if  thou  shalt  allege,  through  pride  of  mind. 
Thy  blood  with  one  of  base  condition  joined, 
'Tis  false,  for  'tis  not  baseness  to  be  poor : 
His  poverty  augments  thy  crime  the  more ; 
Upbraids  thy  justice  with  the  scant  regard 
Of  worth ;  whom  princes  praise,  they  should  reward. 
Are  these  the  kings  intrusted  by  the  crowd 
With  wealth,  to  be  dispensed  for  common  good  ? 
The  people  sweat  not  for  their  king's  delight, 
To  enrich  a  pimp,  or  raise  a  parasite  ; 
Theirs  is  the  toil ;  and  he  who  well  has  served 
His  country,  has  his  country's  wealth  deserved. 
Even  mighty  monarchs  oft  are  meanly  bom. 
And  kings  by  birth  to  lowest  rank  return ; 
All  subject  to  the  power  of  giddy  chance, 
For  fortune  can  depress  or  can  advance ; 
But  true  nobility  is  of  the  mind. 
Not  given  by  chance,  and  not  to  chance  resigned. 

"  '  For  the  remaining  doubt  of  thy  decree. 
What  to  resolve,  and  how  dispose  of  me  ; 
Be  warned  to  cast  that  useless  care  aside — 
Myself  alone  will  for  myself  provide. 


166  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

If,  in  thy  doting  and  decrepit  age, 
Thy  soul,  a  stranger  in  thy  youth  to  rage. 
Begins  in  cruel  deeds  to  take  deUght, 
Gorge  with  my  blood  thy  barbarous  appetite ; 
For  I  so  little  am  disposed  to  pray 
For  hfe,  I  would  not  cast  a  wish  away. 
Such  as  it  is,  the  offence  is  all  my  own ; 
And  what  to  Guiscard  is  already  done. 
Or  to  be  done,  is  doomed,  by  thy  decree, 
That,  if  not  executed  first  by  thee. 
Shall  on  my  person  be  performed  by  me. 

"  'Away !  with  women  weep,  and  leave  me  here, 
Fixed,  like  a  man,  to  die  without  a  tear ; 
Or  save,  or  slay  us  both  this  present  hour, 
'Tis  all  that  fate  has  left  within  thy  power.' " 

The  last  of  the  three,  Cymon  and  Iphigenia,  has  been  a 
great  favourite.  In  the  original  it  is  one  of  the  most  un- 
interesting stories  of  the  Decameron,  the  single  incident  of 
Cyraon's  falling  in  love,  of  which  not  very  much  is  made, 
being  the  only  relief  to  a  commonplace  tale  of  violence 
and  treachery,  in  which  neither  the  motives  nor  the  char- 
acters of  the  actors  sufficiently  justify  them.  The  Italian, 
too,  by  making  Iphigenia  an  unwilling  captive,  takes  away 
from  Cymon  the  only  excuse  he  could  have  had.  The  three 
charming  lines  with  which  Dryden's  poem  opens — 

f  Old  as  I  am,  for  lady's  love  unfit. 
The  power  of  beauty  I  remember  yet. 
Which  once  inflamed  my  soul,  and  still  inspires  my  wit," 

have  probably  bribed  a  good  many  readers,  and  certainly 
the  whole  volume  of  the  Fables  is  an  ample  justification 
of  the  poet's  boast,  not  only  as  regards  beauty  of  one  kind, 
but  of  all.  The  opening  triplet  is  followed  by  a  diatribe 
against  Collier,  which  at  first  seems  in  very  bad  taste ;  but 
it  is  made,  with  excellent  art,  to  lead  on  to  a  description  of 


Till.]  THE  FABLES.  167 

the  power  of  love,  to  which  the  story  yokes  itself  most  nat- 
urally. Nor  is  any  praise  too  high  for  the  description  of 
the  actual  scene  in  which  Cymon  is  converted  from  his 
brutishness  by  the  sight  of  Iphigenia,  an  incident  of  which, 
as  has  been  said,  the  original  takes  small  account.  But 
even  with  the  important  alterations  which  Dryden  has  in- 
troduced into  it,  the  story,  as  a  story,  remains  of  but  sec- 
ond-rate interest. 

Nothing  of  this  sort  can  be  said  of  Theodore  and  Hono- 
ria.  I  have  said  that  Ellis's  commendation  of  it  may  be 
excessive ;  but  that  it  goes  at  the  head  of  all  the  poetry 
of  the  school  of  which  Dryden  was  a  master  is  absolutely 
certain.  The  original  here  is  admirably  suggestive:  the 
adaptation  is  more  admirable  in  its  obedience  to  the  sug- 
gestions. It  has  been  repeatedly  noticed  with  what  art 
Dryden  has  gradually  led  up  to  the  horror  of  the  phan- 
tom lady's  appearance,  which  is  in  the  original  introduced 
in  an  abrupt  and  casual  way ;  while  the  matter-of-factness 
of  the  spectre's  address,  both  to  Theodore  himself  and  to 
the  friends  who  wish  afterwards  to  interfere  in  his  vic- 
tim's favour,  is  most  happily  changed  in  the  English  poem. 
Boccaccio,  indeed,  master  as  he  was  of  a  certain  kind  of 
pathos,  did  not,  at  least  in  the  Decameron,  succeed  with 
this  particular  sort  of  tragedy.  His  narrative  has  alto- 
gether too  much  of  the  chronicle  in  it  to  be  fully  impres- 
sive. Here  Dryden's  process  of  amplification  has  been  of 
the  utmost  service.  At  almost  every  step  of  the  story  he 
has  introduced  new  touches  which  transform  it  altogether, 
and  leave  it,  at  the  close,  a  perfect  piece  of  narrative  of 
the  horrible  kind.  The  same  abruptness  which  has  been 
noticed  in  the  original  version  of  the  earlier  part  of  the 
story  appears  in  the  later.  In  Dryden,  Honoria,  impressed 
with  the  sight,  and  with  Theodore's  subsequent  neglect  of 


168  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

her,  dreams  of  what  she  has  seen,  and  thinks  over  what 
she  has  dreamt,  at  last,  and  only  at  last,  resolving  to  sub- 
due her  pride  and  consent  to  Theodore's  suit.  Boccaccio's 
heroine  goes  straight  home  in  a  business-like  manner,  and 
sends  "  a  trusty  damsel "  that  very  evening  to  inform  her 
lover  that  she  surrenders.  This  is,  to  say  the  least,  sud- 
den. In  short,  the  comparison  is  here  wholly  in  favour  of 
the  English  poet.  Nor,  if  we  drop  the  parallel,  and  look 
at  Theodore  and  Honoria  merely  by  itself,  is  it  less  ad- 
mirable. 

The  purely  original  poems  remain  to  be  noticed.  Of 
the  Epistle  to  John  Driden  we  know  that  Dryden  him- 
self thought  highly,  while  the  person  to  whom  it  was  ad- 
dressed was  so  pleased  with  it  that  he  gave  him  '*  a  noble 
present,"  said  by  family  tradition  to  have  been  500/,,  but 
which  Malone,  ex  sua  conjectura,  reduces  to  100/.  John 
Driden  was  the  poet's  cousin,  and  his  frequent  host  at 
Chesterton.  He  was  a  bachelor,  his  house  being  kept  by 
his  sister  Honor ;  he  was  a  member  of  Parliament,  and  an 
enthusiastic  sportsman.  Chesterton  had  come  into  the 
Dryden  family  by  marriage,  and  John  Driden  inherited 
it  as  the  second  son.  The  poem  contains,  in  allusion  to 
Driden's  bachelorhood,  one  of  those  objurgations  on  mat- 
rimony which  have  been  interpreted  in  a  personal  sense, 
but  which  are,  in  all  probability,  merely  the  commonplaces 
of  the  time.  Besides  wives,  physicians  were  a  frequent 
subject  of  Dryden's  satire ;  and  the  passage  in  this  poem 
about  the  origin  of  medicine  has  been  learnt  by  almost 
every  one.  It  might  not  have  been  written  but  for  Black- 
more's  sins,  for  Dryden  had,  in  the  postscript  to  his  Virgil, 
paid  an  elaborate  compliment  to  two  ornaments  of  the 
profession.  But  it  is  naturally  enough  connected  with  a 
compliment  to  his  cousin's  sportsmanship.    Then  there  is 


Tin.]  THE  FABLES.  169 

what  might  be  called  a  "  Character  of  a  good  Member  of 
Parliament,"  fashioned,  of  course,  to  suit  the  case  of  the 
person  addressed,  who,  though  not  exactly  a  Jacobite,  was 
a  member  of  the  Opposition.  The  poem  ends  with  a 
most  adroit  compliment  at  once  to  the  subject  and  to  the 
writer.  These  complimentary  pieces  always  please  pos- 
terity with  a  certain  drawback,  unless,  like  the  lines  to 
Congreve,  and  the  almost  more  beautiful  lines  on  Oldham, 
they  deal  with  merits  which  are  still  in  evidence,  and  are 
not  merely  personal.  But  the  judgment  of  Dorset  and 
Montague,  who  thought  of  this  piece  and  of  the  exquisite 
verses  to  the  Duchess  of  Ormond  that  he  "  never  writ  bet- 
ter," was  not  far  wrong. 

The  only  piece  that  remains  to  be  noticed  is  better 
knovni  even  than  the  Epistle  to  John  Driden.  Alexander's 
Feast  was  the  second  ode  which  Dryden  wrote  for  the 
"  Festival  of  St.  Cecilia."  He  received  for  it  40/.,  which, 
as  he  tells  his  sons  that  the  writing  of  it  "  would  be 
noways  beneficial,"  was  probably  unexpected,  if  the  state- 
ment as  to  the  payment  is  true.  There  are  other  legendary 
contradictions  about  the  time  occupied  in  writing  it,  one 
story  saying  that  it  was  done  in  a  single  night,  while  an- 
other asserts  that  he  was  a  fortnight  in  composing  or  cor- 
recting it.  But,  as  has  been  frequently  pointed  out,  the 
two  statements  are  by  no  means  incompatible.  Another 
piece  of  gossip  about  this  famous  ode  is  that  Dryden  at 
first  wrote  Lais  instead  of  Thais,  which  "  small  mistake  " 
he  bids  Tonson  in  a  letter  to  remember  to  alter.  Little 
criticism  of  Alexander's  Feast  is  necessary.  Whatever 
drawbacks  its  form  may  have  (especially  the  irritating 
chorus),  it  must  be  admitted  to  be  about  the  best  thing  of 
its  kind,  and  nothing  more  can  be  demanded  of  any  poetry 
than  to  be  excellent  in  its  kind.  Dryden  himself  thought 
M    8*  12 


ITO  DRYDEN.  [char 

it  the  best  of  all  his  poetry,  and  he  had  a  remarkable  fac- 
ulty of  self-criticism. 

This  volume  of  poems  was  not  only  the  last  that  Dry- 
den  produced,  but  it  also  exhibits  his  poetical  character  in 
its  very  best  and  most  perfect  form.  He  had,  through  all 
his  long  literary  life,  been  constantly  a  student,  always  his 
own  scholar,  always  correcting,  varying,  re-arranging,  and 
refining.  The  citations  already  given  will  have  shown  at 
what  perfection  of  metre  he  had  by  this  time  arrived. 
Good  as  his  early  (if  not  his  earliest)  works  are  in  this 
respect,  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  long  before  he 
attained  his  greatest  skill.  Play-writing  in  rhyme  and 
blank  verse,  practice  in  stanzas,  and  Pindarics,  and  irreg- 
ular lyrical  measures,  all  went  to  furnish  him  with  the  ex- 
perience he  required,  and  which  certainly  was  not  in  his 
case  the  school  of  a  fool. 

Beginning  with  a  state  of  pupilage  to  masters  who  were 
none  of  the  best,  he  subsequently  took  little  instruction, 
except  of  a  fragmentary  kind,  from  any  living  man  except 
Milton  in  poetry,  and,  as  he  told  Congreve,  Tillotson  in 
prose.  But  he  was  none  the  less  constantly  teaching  him- 
self. His  vocabulary  is  naturally  a  point  of  great  impor- 
tance in  any  consideration  of  his  influence  on  our  literature. 
His  earliest  work  exhibits  many  traces  of  the  scholastic 
and  pedantic  phraseology  of  his  immediate  forerunners. 
It  is  probable  that  in  his  second  period,  when  his  activity 
was  chiefly  dramatic,  he  might  have  got  rid  of  this,  had 
not  the  tendency  been  strengthened  by  the  influence  of 
Milton.  At  one  period,  again,  the  Gallicizing  tendencies 
of  the  time  led  him  to  a  very  improper  and  inexcusable 
importation  of  French  words.  This,  however,  he  soon 
dropped.  In  the  meridian  of  his  powers,  when  his  great 
satires  were  produced,  these  tendencies,  the  classical  and 


VIII.]  THE  FABLES.  Ill 

the  Galilean,  in  action  and  re-action  with  his  full  command 
of  English,  vernacular  and  literary,  produced  a  dialect 
which,  if  not  the  most  graceful  that  the  language  has  ever 
known,  is  perhaps  the  strongest  and  most  nervous.  Little 
change  takes  place  in  the  last  twenty  years,  though  the 
tendency  to  classicism  and  archaism,  strengthened  it  may 
be  by  the  work  of  translation,  not  unfrequently  reappears. 
In  versification  the  great  achievement  of  Dryden  was  the 
alteration  of  what  may  be  called  the  balance  of  the  line, 
causing  it  to  run  more  quickly,  and  to  strike  its  rhymes 
with  a  sharper  and  less  prolonged  sound.  One  obvious 
means  of  obtaining  this  end  was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the 
isolation  of  the  couplet,  and  the  avoidance  of  overlapping 
the  different  lines  one  upon  the  other.  The  effect  of  this 
overlapping,  by  depriving  the  eye  and  voice  of  the  expec- 
tation of  rest  at  the  end  of  each  couplet,  is  always  one  of 
two  things.  Either  the  lines  arc  converted  into  a  sort  of 
rhythmic  prose,  made  musical  by  the  rhymes  rather  than 
divided  by  them,  or  else  a  considerable  pause  is  invited  at 
the  end  of  each,  or  of  most  lines,  and  the  cadence  of  the 
whole  becomes  comparatively  slow  and  languid.  Both 
these  forms,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  works  of  Mr.  Morris, 
as  well  as  in  the  older  writers,  are  excellently  suited  for 
narration  of  some  considerable  length.  They  are  less  well 
suited  for  satire,  for  argument,  and  for  the  moral  reflec- 
tions which  the  age  of  Dryden  loved.  He,  therefore,  set 
himself  to  elaborate  the  couplet  with  its  sharp  point,  its 
quick  delivery,  and  the  pistol-like  detonation  of  its  rhyme. 
But  there  is  an  obvious  objection,  or  rather  there  are  sev- 
eral obvious  objections  which  present  themselves  to  the 
couplet.  It  was  natural  that  to  one  accustomed  to  the 
more  varied  range  of  the  older  rhythm  and  metre,  there 
might  seem  to  be  a  danger  of  the  snip-snap  monotony 


172  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

into  which,  as  we  know,  it  did  actually  fall  when  it  passed 
out  of  the  hands  of  its  first  great  practitioners.  There 
might  also  be  a  fear  that  it  would  not  always  be  possible 
to  compress  the  sense  of  a  complete  clause  within  the  nar- 
row limits  of  twenty  syllables.  To  meet  these  difficulties 
Dryden  resorted  to  three  mechanical  devices — the  hemi- 
stich, the  Alexandrine,  and  the  triplet ;  all  three  of  which 
could  be  used  indifferently  to  eke  out  the  space  or  to  give 
variety  of  sound.  The  use  of  the  hemistich,  or  fragment- 
ary line,  appears  to  have  been  based  partly  on  the  well- 
known  practice  of  Virgil,  partly  on  the  necessities  of 
dramatic  composition  where  the  unbroken  English  couplet 
is  to  English  ears  intolerable.  In  poetry  proper  the  hemi- 
stich is  anything  but  pleasing,  and  Dryden,  becoming  con- 
vinced of  the  fact,  almost  discarded  it.  The  Alexandrine 
and  the  triplet  he  always  continued  to  use,  and  they  are 
to  this  day  the  most  obvious  characteristics,  to  a  casual 
observer,  of  his  versification.  To  the  Alexandrine,  judi- 
ciously used,  and  limited  to  its  proper  acceptation  of  a  verse 
of  twelve  syllables,  I  can  see  no  objection.  The  metre, 
though  a  well-known  English  critic  has  maltreated  it  of 
late,  is  a  very  fine  one ;  and  some  of  Dryden's  own  lines 
are  unmatched  examples  of  that  "  energy  divine "  which 
has  been  attributed  to  him.  In  an  essay  on  the  Alex- 
andrine in  English  poetry,  which  yet  remains  to  be  writ- 
ten, and  which  would  be  not  the  least  valuable  of  contri- 
butions to  poetical  criticism,  this  use  of  the  verse  would 
have  to  be  considered,  as  well  as  its  regular  recurrent  em- 
ployment at  the  close  of  the  Spenserian  stanza,  and  its 
continuous  use,  of  which  not  many  poets  besides  Drayton 
and  Mr.  Browning  have  given  us  considerable  examples. 
An  examination  of  the  Polyolbion  and  of  Fifine  at  the 
Fair,  side  by  side,  would,  I  think,  reveal  capacities  some- 


Tin.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  lis 

what  unexpected  even  in  this  form  of  arrangement.  But 
so  far  as  the  occasional  Alexandrine  is  concerned,  it  is  not 
a  hyperbole  to  say  that  a  number,  out  of  all  proportion,  of 
the  best  lines  in  English  poetry  may  be  found  in  the  clos- 
ing verses  of  the  Spenserian  stave  as  used  by  Spenser  him- 
self, by  Shelley,  and  by  the  present  Laureate,  and  in  the 
occasional  Alexandrines  of  Dryden.  The  only  thing  to 
be  said  against  this  latter  use  is,  that  it  demands  a  very 
skilful  ear  and  hand  to  adjust  the  cadence.  So  much  for 
the  Alexandrine. 

For  the  triplet  I  must  confess  myself  to  be  entirely 
without  affection.  Except  in  the  very  rare  cases  when  its 
contents  come  in,  in  point  of  sense,  as  a  kind  of  paren- 
thesis or  aside,  it  seems  to  me  to  £?poil  the  metre,  if  any- 
thing could  spoil  Dryden's  verse.  That  there  was  some 
doubt  about  it  even  in  the  minds  of  those  who  used  it, 
may  be  inferred  from  the  care  they  generally  took  to  ac- 
company it  in  print  with  the  bracket  indicator,  as  if  to 
invite  the  eye  to  break  it  gently  to  the  ear.  So  strong 
was  Dryden's  verse,  so  well  able  to  subdue  all  forms  to 
its  own  measure,  that  in  him  it  mattered  but  little ;  in  his 
followers  its  drawbacks  at  once  appeared. 

A  few  personal  details  not  already  alluded  to  remain  as 
to  Dryden's  life  at  this  time.  To  this  period  belongs  the 
second  and  only  other  considerable  series  of  his  letters. 
They  are  addressed  to  Mrs.  Steward,  a  cousin  of  his, 
though  of  a  much  younger  generation.  Mrs.  Steward  was 
the  daughter  of  Mrs.  Creed,  the  already-mentioned  inde- 
fatigable decorator  of  Northamptonshire  churches  and 
halls,  and  she  herself  was  given  to  the  arts  of  painting  and 
poetry.  She  had  married  Mr.  Elmes  Steward,  a  mighty 
sportsman,  whose  house  at  Cotterstock  still  exists  by  the 
roadside  from  Oundle  to  Peterborough.     The  correspond- 


IH  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

ence  extends  over  the  last  eighteen  mouths  of  the  poet's 
life,  beginning  in  October,  1698,  and  not  ending  till  a 
week  or  two  before  his  death  in  the  spring  of  1700.  Mrs. 
Steward  is  said  to  have  been  about  eight-and-twenty  at  the 
time,  and  beautiful.  The  first  letter  speaks  of  a  visit  soon 
to  be  paid  to  Cotterstock  after  many  invitations,  and  is 
rather  formal  in  style.  Thenceforward,  however,  the  epis- 
tles, sometimes  addressed  to  Mr.  Steward  (Dryden  not  in- 
frequently spells  it  Stewart  and  Stuart),  and  sometimes  to 
his  wife,  are  very  cordial,  and  full  of  thanks  for  presents 
of  country  produce.  On  one  occasion  Dryden  '*  intends  " 
that  Lady  Elizabeth  should  "  taste  the  plover  he  had  re- 
ceived," an  incident  upon  which,  if  I  were  a  commentator, 
I  should  build  a  legend  of  conjugal  happiness  quite  as 
plausible,  and  probably  quite  as  well  founded,  as  the  legend 
of  conjugal  unhappiness  which  has  actually  been  construct- 
ed. Then  there  are  injurious  allusions  to  a  certain  par- 
son's wife  at  Tichmarsh,  who  is  "just  the  contrary  "of  Mrs. 
Steward.  Marrow  puddings  are  next  acknowledged,  which 
it  seems  were  so  good  that  they  had  quite  spoiled  Charles 
Dryden's  taste  for  any  other.  Then  comes  that  sentence, 
"  Old  men  are  not  so  insensible  of  beauty  as,  it  may  be, 
you  young  ladies  think,"  which  was  elsewhere  translated 
into  eloquent  verse,  and  the  same  letter  describes  the 
writer  as  passing  his  time  "  sometimes  with  Ovid,  some- 
times with  our  old  English  poet  Chaucer."  More  ac- 
knowledgments of  presents  follow,  and  then  a  visit  is 
promised,  with  the  prayer  that  Mrs.  Steward  will  have 
some  small  beer  brewed  for  him  without  hops,  or  with  a 
very  inconsiderable  quantity,  because  the  bitter  beer  at 
Tichmarsh  had  made  him  very  ill.  The  visit  came  off  in 
August,  1699,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  beer  was  not 
bitter.    After  his  return  the  poet  sends,  in  the  pleasant  old 


vni.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  176 

fashion,  a  history  of  his  journey  back  to  London,  whither 
the  stage  coach  took  him  out  of  his  way,  whereby,  not 
passing  certain  friends'  houses,  he  missed  "  two  couple  of 
rabbits,  and  Mr.  Cole's  Ribadavia  wine,"  a  stirrup  cup  of 
the  latter  being  probably  intended.  In  November  occurs 
the  famous  description  of  himself  as  "  a  man  who  has 
done  his  best  to  improve  the  language,  and  especially  the 
poetry,"  with  much  literary  and  political  gossip,  and  occa- 
sional complaints  of  bad  health.  This  letter  may  perhaps 
be  quoted  as  a  specimen : 

"JVb».  7, 1699. 
"Madam, — Even  your  expostulations  are  pleasing  to  me;  for 
though  they  show  you  angry,  yet  they  are  not  without  many  expres- 
sions of  your  kindness ;  and  therefore  I  am  proud  to  be  so  chidden. 
Yet  I  cannot  so  farr  abandon  my  own  defence,  as  to  confess  any  idle- 
ness or  forgetfuhiess  on  my  part.  What  has  hind'red  me  from  write- 
ing  to  you  was  neither  ill  health,  nor,  a  worse  thing,  ingratitude ;  but 
a  flood  of  little  businesses,  which  yet  are  necessary  to  my  subsist- 
ance,  and  of  which  I  hop'd  to  have  given  you  a  good  account  before 
this  time :  but  the  Court  rather  speaks  kindly  of  me,  than  does  any- 
thing for  me,  though  they  promise  largely  ;  and  perhaps  they  think 
I  will  advance  as  they  go  backward,  in  which  they  will  be  much  de- 
ceiv'd ;  for  I  can  never  go  an  inch  beyond  my  conscience  and  my 
honour.  If  they  will  consider  me  as  a  man  who  has  done  my  best  to 
improve  the  language,  and  especially  the  poetry,  and  will  be  content 
with  my  acquiescence  under  the  present  government,  and  forbearing 
satire  on  it,  that  I  can  promise,  because  I  can  perform  it ;  but  I  can 
neither  take  the  oaths,  nor  forsake  my  religion ;  because  I  know  not 
what  church  to  go  to,  if  I  leave  the  Catholique ;  they  are  all  so  di- 
vided amongst  themselves  in  matters  of  faith  necessary  to  salvation, 
and  yet  all  assumeing  the  name  of  Protestants.  May  God  be  pleased 
to  open  your  eyes,  as  he  has  open'd  mine !  Truth  is  but  one ;  and 
they  who  have  once  heard  of  it  can  plead  no  excuse  if  they  do  not 
embrace  it.  But  these  are  things  too  serious  for  a  trifling  letter.  If 
you  desire  to  hear  anything  more  of  my  affairs,  the  Earl  of  Dorsett 
and  your  cousin  Montague  have  both  seen  the  two  poems  to  the 
Duchess  of  Ormond  and  my  worthy  cousin  Driden ;  and  are  of  opiu- 


lit  DRYDEN.  [cHAP.viu. 

ion  that  I  never  writt  better.  My  other  friends  are  divided  in  their 
judgments  which  to  preferr ;  but  the  greater  part  are  for  those  to 
my  dear  kinsman ;  which  I  have  corrected  with  so  much  care,  that 
they  will  now  be  worthy  of  his  sight,  and  do  neither  of  us  any  dis- 
honour after  our  death. 

"  There  is  this  day  to  be  acted  a  new  tragedy,  made  by  Mr.  Hop- 
kins, and,  as  I  believe,  in  rhime.  He  has  formerly  written  a  play 
in  verse,  called  Boadicea,  which  you  fair  ladyes  lik'd ;  and  is  a  poet 
who  writes  good  verses,  without  knowing  how  or  why ;  I  mean,  he 
writes  naturally  well,  without  art,  or  learning,  or  good  sence.  Con- 
greve  is  ill  of  the  gout  at  Barnet  Wells.  I  have  had  the  honour  of 
a  visite  from  the  Earl  of  Dorsett,  and  din'd  with  him.  Matters  in 
Scotland  are  in  a  high  ferment,  and  next  door  to  a  breach  betwixt 
the  two  nations ;  but  they  say  from  court  that  France  and  we  are 
hand  and  glove.  'Tis  thought  the  king  will  endeavour  to  keep  up  a 
standing  army,  and  make  the  stirr  in  Scotland  his  pretence  for  it ;  my 
cousin  Driden  and  the  country  party,  I  suppose,  will  be  against  it ; 
for  when  a  spirit  is  raised,  'tis  hard  conjuring  him  down  again.  You 
see  I  am  dull  by  my  writeing  news ;  but  it  may  be  my  cousin  Creed 
may  be  glad  to  hear  what  I  believe  is  true,  though  not  very  pleasing. 
I  hope  he  recovers  health  in  the  country,  by  his  staying  so  long  in  it. 
My  service  to  my  cousin  Stuart,  and  all  at  Oundle. 
"  I  am,  faire  Cousine, 

"  Your  most  obedient  servant, 

"John  Dbtden. 
"  For  Mrs.  Stewart,  Alt 

Cotterstock,  near  Oandle, 

In  Northamptonshire, 

These. 
To  be  left  at  the  Post-house  in  Onndle." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

CONCLUSION. 

Dryden's  life  lasted  but  a  very  short  time  after  the  pabli- 
cation  of  the  Fables.  He  was,  if  not  a  very  old  man,  close 
upon  his  seventieth  year.  He  had  worked  hard,  and  had 
probably  lived  no  more  carefully  than  most  of  the  men  of 
his  time.  Gout,  gravel,  and  other  disorders  tormented  him 
sorely.  The  Fables  were  published  in  November,  1699, 
and  during  the  winter  he  was  more  or  less  ill.  As  has 
been  mentioned,  many  letters  of  his  exist  in  reference  to 
this  time,  more  in  proportion  than  for  any  other  period  of 
his  life.  Besides  those  to  Mrs.  Steward,  there  are  some 
addressed  to  Mrs.  Thomas,  a  young  and  pretty  literary 
lady,  who  afterwards  fell  among  the  Philistines,  and  who 
made  use  of  her  brief  intimacy  with  the  Dryden  family  to 
romance  freely  about  it,  when  in  her  later  days  she  was 
indigent,  in  prison,  and,  what  was  worse,  in  the  employ  of 
Curll.  One  of  these  letters  contains  the  frankest  and  most 
graceful  of  Dryden's  many  apologies  for  the  looseness 
of  his  writings,  accompanied  by  a  caution  to  "  Corinna " 
against  following  the  example  of  the  illustrious  Aphra 
Behn,  a  caution  which  was  a  good  deal  needed,  though  un- 
fortunately fruitless.  In  the  early  spring  of  1700,  or,  ac- 
cording to  the  calendar  of  the  day,  in  the  last  months  of 
1699,  some  of  Dryden's  admirers  got  up  a  benefit  per- 


178  DRYDEN.  [chat. 

form  an  ce  for  him  at  the  Duke's  Theatre.  Fletcher's  Pil- 
grim was  selected  for  the  occasion,  revised  by  Vanbrugh, 
and  with  the  addition  of  a  lyrical  scene  by  Dryden  him- 
self. He  also  wrote  for  the  occasion  a  secular  masque  to 
celebrate  the  opening  of  a  new  century:  the  controversy 
on  the  point  whether  1700  belonged  to  the  seventeenth 
century  or  the  eighteenth  not  having,  it  seems,  arisen. 
The  performance  took  place,  but  the  date  of  it  is  uncer- 
tain, and  it  has  been  thought  that  it  was  not  till  after 
Dryden's  death.  This  happened  in  the  following  wise: 
During  the  months  of  March  and  April  Dryden  was  very 
ill  with  gout.  One  toe  became  much  inflamed,  and  not  be- 
ing properly  attended  to,  it  mortified.  Hobbs,  the  surgeon, 
was  then  called  in,  and  advised  amputation,  but  Dryden 
refused  on  the  score  of  his  age,  and  the  inutility  of  pro- 
longing a  maimed  existence.  The  mortification  spreading 
farther,  it  was  a  case  for  amputation  of  the  entire  leg, 
with  probably  dubious  results,  or  else  for  certain  death. 
On  the  30th  of  April  the  Postboy  announced  that  "  John 
Dryden,  Esq.,  the  famous  poet,  lies  a-dying,"  and  at  three 
o'clock  the  next  morning  he  died  very  quietly  and  peace- 
fully. 

His  funeral  was  suflBciently  splendid.  Halifax  is  said 
to  have  at  first  offered  to  discharge  the  whole  cost  him- 
self, but  other  friends  were  anxious  to  share  it,  among 
whom  Dorset  and  Lord  Jeffreys,  the  Chancellor's  son,  are 
specially  mentioned.  The  body  was  embalmed,  and  lay 
in  state  at  the  College  of  Physicians  for  some  days.  On 
the  13th  of  May  the  actual  funeral  took  place  at  West- 
minster Abbey,  with  a  great  procession,  preceded  at  the 
College  by  a  Latin  oration  from  Garth,  the  President,  and 
by  the  singing  of  Exegi  Monumentum  to  music.  Years 
afterwards  "Corinna"  forged  for  Curll  a  wild  account  of 


IX.]  CONCLUSION.  179 

the  matter,  of  which  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  it  lacks  the 
slightest  corroboration,  and  is  intrinsically  improbable,  if 
not  impossible.  It  may  be  found  in  most  of  the  biogra- 
phies, and  Malone  has  devoted  his  usual  patient  industry 
to  its  demolition.  Some  time  passed  before  any  monu- 
ment was  erected  to  Dryden  in  Poet's  Corner,  where  he 
had  been  buried  by  Chaucer  and  Cowley.  Pepys  tells  us 
that  Dorset  and  Montague  were  going  to  do  it.  But  they 
did  not.  Some  time  later  Congreve  complimented  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle  on  having  given  order  for  a  monu- 
ment, a  compliment  which  his  Grace  obtained  at  a  re- 
markably cheap  rate,  for  the  order,  if  given,  was  never 
executed.  Finally,  twenty  years  after  his  death,  the  Duke 
of  Buckinghamshire,  better  known  under  his  former  title 
of  Lord  Mulgrave,  came  to  the  rescue,  it  is  said,  owing  to 
a  reflection  of  Pope's  on  Dry  den's  "rude  and  nameless 
stone."  The  monument  was  not  magnificent,  but  at  any 
rate  it  saves  the  poet  from  such  dishonour  as  there  may 
be  in  a  nameless  grave.  The  hymn  sung  at  his  funeral 
probably  puts  that  matter  most  sensibly. 

Dry  den's  wife  lived  until  1714,  and  died  a  very  old 
woman  and  insane.  Her  children,  like  her  husband,  had 
died  before  her.  Charles,  the  eldest,  was  drowned  in  the 
Thames  near  Datchet,  in  1704;  John,  the  second,  hardly 
outlived  his  father  a  year,  and  died  at  Rome  in  1701 ;  the 
third,  Erasmus  Henry,  succeeded,  in  1710,  to  the  family 
honours,  but  died  in  the  same  year.  The  house  of  Canons 
Ashby  is  still  held  by  descendants  of  the  family,  but  in 
the  female  line ;  though  the  name  has  been  unbroken,  and 
the  title  has  been  continued. 

Something  has  already  been  said  about  the  character  of 
Lady  Elizabeth  Dryden.  It  has  to  be  added  here  that  the 
stories  about  her  temper  and  relations  with  her  husband 


180  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

and  his  friends,  bear  investigation  as  little  as  those  about 
her  maidenly  conduct.  Most  of  them  are  mere  hearsays, 
and  some  not  even  that.  Dryden,  it  is  said,  must  have 
lived  unhappily  with  his  wife,  for  he  is  always  sneering  at 
matrimony.  It  is  suflScient  to  say  that  much  the  same 
might  be  said  of  every  writer  (at  least  for  the  stage)  be- 
tween the  Restoration  and  the  accession  of  Anne.  Even 
the  famous  line  in  Absalom  and  Achitophely  which  has 
caused  such  scandal,  is  a  commonplace  as  old  at  least  as 
Jean  de  Meung  and  the  Roman  de  la  Rose.  When  Ma- 
lone,  on  the  authority  of  a  Lady  Dryden  who  lived  a  hun- 
dred years  later,  but  without  a  tittle  of  documentary  evi- 
dence, tells  us  that  Lady  Elizabeth  was  a  shrew,  we  really 
must  ask  what  is  the  value  of  such  testimony  ?  There  is 
one  circumstantial  legend  which  has  been  much  relied  on. 
Dryden,  it  is  said,  was  at  work  one  day  in  his  study,  when 
his  wife  came  in,  and  could  not  make  him  listen  to  some- 
thing she  had  to  say.  Thereupon  said  she,  in  a  pet, "  I 
wish  I  were  a  book,  and  then  perhaps  you  would  pay  me 
some  attention."  "  Then,  my  dear,"  replied  this  graceless 
bard, "  pray  be  an  almanac,  that  I  may  change  you  at  the 
end  of  the  year."  The  joke  cannot  be  said  to  be  brilliant ; 
but,  taking  it  as  a  true  story,  the  notion  of  founding  a 
charge  of  conjugal  unhappiuess  thereon  is  sufficiently  ab- 
surd. Mrs.  Thomas's  romancings  are  worthy  of  no  credit, 
and  even  if  they  were  worthy  of  any,  do  not  bear  much 
upon  the  question.  All  that  can  be  said  is,  that  the  few 
allusions  to  Lady  Elizabeth  in  the  poet's  letters  are  made 
in  all  propriety,  and  tell  no  tale  of  disunion.  Of  his  chil- 
dren it  is  allowed  that  he  was  excessively  fond,  and  his  per- 
sonal amiability  is  testified  to  with  one  consent  by  all  his 
friends  who  have  left  testimonies  on  the  subject.  Con- 
greve  and  *'  Granville  the  Polite  "  both  mention  his  modest 


a.l  CONCLUSION.  181 

and  unassuming  demeanour,  and  the  obligingness  of  his 
disposition.  Pope,  it  is  true,  has  brought  against  him  the 
terrible  accusation  that  he  was  '*  not  a  genteel  man,"  be- 
ing '*  intimate  with  none  but  poetical  men."  The  fact  on 
which  the  charge  seems  to  be  based  is  more  than  dubious, 
and  Pope  was  evidently  transferring  his  own  conception  of 
Grub  Street  to  the  times  when  to  be  a  poetical  man  cer- 
tainly was  no  argument  against  gentility.  Rochester,  Mul- 
grave,  Dorset,  Sedley,  Etherege,  Roscommon,  make  a  very 
odd  assortment  of  ungenteel  poetical  friends. 

It  is  astonishing,  when  one  comes  to  examine  the  mat- 
ter, how  vague  and  shadowy  our  personal  knowledge  of 
Dryden  is.  A  handful  of  anecdotes,  many  of  them  un- 
dated and  unauthenticated  except  at  third  and  fourth  hand, 
furnish  us  with  almost  all  that  we  do  know.  That  he  was 
fond  of  fishing,  and  prided  himself  upon  being  a  better 
fisherman  than  Durfey ;  that  he  took  a  good  deal  of  snuff; 
and  that  he  did  not  drink  much  until  Addison,  in  the  last 
years  of  his  life,  induced  him  to  do  so,  almost  exhausts 
the  lists  of  such  traits  which  are  recorded  by  others.  II  is 
"  down  look,"  his  plumpness,  his  fresh  colour  are  points 
in  which  tradition  is  pretty  well  supported  by  the  portraits 
'*hich  exist,  and  by  such  evidence  as  can  be  extracted 
from  the  libels  against  him.  The  famous  picture  of  him 
at  Will's,  which  every  one  repeats,  and  v.hich  Scott  has 
made  classical  in  the  Pirate,  is  very  likely  true  enough  to 
fact,  and  there  is  no  harm  in  thinking  of  Dryden  in  the 
great  coffee-house,  with  his  chair  in  the  balcony  in  sum- 
mer, by  the  fire  in  winter,  passing  criticisms  and  paying 
good-natured  compliments  on  matters  literary.  He  had, 
he  tells  Mrs.  Steward,  a  very  vulgar  stomach — thus  par- 
tially justifying  Pope's  accusations — and  liked  a  chine  of 
bacon  better  than  marrow  puddings.     He  dignified  Sam- 


182  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

uel  Pepys  with  the  title  of  Padron  Mio,  and  was  invited 
by  Samuel  to  eat  a  cold  chicken  and  a  salad  with  him  in 
return.  According  to  one  of  the  aimless  gossiping  stories, 
which  are  almost  all  we  possess,  he  once  stayed  with  Mul- 
grave  at  the  great  Yorkshire  domain  whence  the  title  was 
derived,  and  was  cheated  by  Mulgrave  at  bowls — a  story 
not  so  unbelievable  as  Mr.  Bell  seems  to  think,  for  every- 
body cheated  at  play  in  those  days ;  and  Mulgrave's  dis- 
inclination to  pay  his  tradesmen,  or  in  any  other  way  to 
get  rid  of  money,  was  notorious.  But  even  the  gossip 
which  has  come  down  to  us  is  almost  entirely  literary. 
Thus  we  are  told  that  when  he  allowed  certain  merits  to 
"  starch  Johnny  Crowne  " — so  called  because  of  the  unal- 
terable stiffness  and  propriety  of  his  collar  and  cravat — he 
used  to  add  that  "  his  father  and  Crowne's  mother  had 
been  great  friends."  It  is  only  fair  to  the  reputation  of 
Erasmus  Dryden  and  of  Mrs.  Crowne  to  add  that  this  must 
have  been  pure  mischief,  inasmuch  as  it  is  always  said  that 
the  author  of  Sir  Courtly  Nice  was  born  in  Nova  Scotia. 
His  weU-feigned  denunciation  of  Smith  and  Johnson,  his 
tormentors,  or  rather  the  tormentors  of  his  Eidolon  Bayes, 
as  "  the  coolest  and  most  insignificant  fellows "  he  had 
ever  seen  on  the  stage,  may  be  also  recalled.  Again,  there 
is  a  legend  that  Bolingbroke,  when  a  young  man,  came  in 
one  morning  to  see  him,  and  found  that  he  had  been  sit- 
ing up  all  night  writing  the  ode  on  St.  Cecilia's  Day.  An- 
other time  Bolingbroke  called  on  him,  and  was  asked  to 
outstay  Jacob  Tonson,  so  as  to  prevent  some  apprehended 
incivility  from  the  truculent  Jacob.  The  story  of  his  vex- 
ation at  the  liberty  taken  with  him  by  Prior  and  Monta- 
gue has  been  already  mentioned  more  than  once,  but  may 
be  regarded  with  very  considerable  suspicion.  Most  fa- 
mous perhaps  of  all  such  legends  is  that  which  tells  of  the 


a.]  CONCLUSION.  183 

unlucky  speech,  *'  Cousin  Swift,  you  will  never  be  a  poet," 
than  which  never  was  there  anything  more  true  or  more 
unfortunate.  Yet  the  enmity  which,  though  it  has  been 
exaggerated,  the  greatest  English  man  of  letters  in  the 
next  generation  felt  towards  his  kinsman  ought  not  to  be 
wholly  regretted,  because  it  has  produced  one  of  the  most 
touching  instances  of  literal  devotion  which  even  a  com- 
mentator ever  paid  to  his  idol.  Swift,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, has   injuriously  stigmatized  Dryden's  prefaces  as 

being 

"  Merely  writ  at  first  for  filling, 
To  raise  the  volume's  price  a  shilling." 

Hereupon  Malone  has  set  to,  and  has  gravely  demonstrated 
that,  as  the  price  at  which  plays  were  then  issued  was  fixed 
and  constant,  the  insertion  of  a  long  preface  instead  of  a 
short  one,  or  indeed  of  any  preface  at  all,  could  not  have 
raised  the  volume's  price  a  penny.  Next  to  Shadwell's 
criticism  on  Macjlecknoe,  I  think  this  may  be  allowed  to  be 
the  happiest  example  recorded  in  connexion  with  the  life 
of  Dryden  of  the  spirit  of  literalism. 

Such  idle  stuff  as  these  legends  mostly  are  is  indeed 
hardly  worth  discussion,  hardly  even  worth  mentioning. 
The  quiet  scenery  of  the  Nene  Valley,  in  which  Dryden 
passed  all  the  beginning  and  not  a  little  of  the  close  of  his 
life ;  the  park  at  Charlton ;  the  river  (an  imaginary  asso- 
ciation perhaps,  but  too  striking  a  one  to  be  lost)  on  which 
Crites  and  Eugenius  and  Neander  rowed  down  past  the 
"  great  roar  of  waters  "  at  London  Bridge,  and  heard  the 
Dutch  guns  as  they  talked  of  dramatic  poesy ;  the  house 
in  Gerrard  Street ;  the  balcony  and  coffee-room  at  Will's ; 
the  park  where  the  king  walked  with  the  poet ;  and,  last 
of  all,  the  Abbey :  these  are  the  only  scenes  in  which  Dry- 
den can  be  pictured  even  by  the  most  imaginative  lover 


184  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

of  the  concrete  picturesque.  Very  few  days  of  his  life 
of  nearly  seventy  years  emerge  for  us  from  the  mass  by 
virtue  of  any  definite  and  detailed  incident,  the  account  of 
which  we  have  on  trustworthy  authority.  It  is  a  com- 
monplace to  say  that  an  author's  life  is  in  his  works. 
But  in  Dryden's  case  it  is  a  simple  fact,  and  therefore  a 
biography  of  him,  let  it  be  repeated  at  the  close  as  it  was 
asserted  at  the  beginning,  must  consist  of  little  but  a  dis- 
cussion and  running  comment  on  those  works,  and  on  the 
characteristics,  literary  and  personal,  which  are  discoverable 
in  them. 

It  only  now  remains  to  sum  up  these  characteristics, 
which  it  must  never  be  forgotten  are  of  even  more  value 
because  of  the  representative  character  of  Dryden  than 
because  of  his  individual  eminence.  Many  as  are  the 
great  men  of  letters  who  have  illustrated  English  litera- 
ture from  the  beginning  to  the  present  day,  it  may  safely 
be  said  that  no  one  so  represented  his  time  and  so  in* 
fluenced  it  as  the  man  of  letters  whom  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing. There  are  greater  names  in  our  literature,  no 
doubt ;  there  are  others  as  great  or  nearly  so.  But  at  no 
time  that  I  can  think  of  was  there  any  Englishman  who, 
for  a  considerable  period,  was  so  far  in  advance  of  his 
contemporaries  in  almost  every  branch  of  literary  work 
as  Dryden  was  during  the  last  twenty  years  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  To  turn  a  satiric  couplet  of  his  own,  by 
the  alteration  of  a  single  word,  from  an  insult  to  a  com- 
pliment, we  may  say  that  he,  at  any  rate  during  his  last 
decade, 

"  In  prose  and  verse  was  owned  without  dispute 
Within  the  realms  of  English  absolute." 

But  his  representative  character  in  relation  to  the  men  of 
his  time  was  almost  more  remarkable  than  his  intellectual 


IX.]  CONCLUSION.  185 

and  artistic  superiority  to  them.  Other  great  men  of  let 
ters,  with  perhaps  the  single  exception  of  Voltaire,  have 
usually,  when  they  represented  their  time  at  all,  represent- 
ed but  a  small  part  of  it.  With  Dryden  this  was  not  the 
case.  Not  only  did  the  immense  majority  of  men  of  let- 
ters in  his  later  days  directly  imitate  him,  but  both  then 
and  earlier  most  literary  Englishmen,  even  when  they  did 
not  imitate  him,  worked  on  the  same  lines  and  pursued 
the  same  objects.  The  eighteen  volumes  of  his  works 
contain  a  faithful  representation  of  the  whole  literary 
movement  in  England  for  the  best  part  of  half  a  century, 
and  what  is  more,  they  contain  the  germs  and  indicate  the 
direction  of  almost  the  whole  literary  movement  for  nearly 
a  century  more. 

But  Dryden  was  not  only  in  his  literary  work  a  typical 
Englishman  of  his  time,  and  a  favourably  typical  oue ; 
he  was  almost  as  representative  in  point  of  character. 
The  time  was  not  the  most  showy  or  attractive  in  the 
moral  history  of  the  nation,  though  perhaps  it  looks  to 
us  not  a  little  worse  than  it  was.  But  it  must  be  admit- 
ted to  have  been  a  time  of  shameless  coarseness  in  lan- 
guage and  manners;  of  virulent  and  bloodthirsty  party- 
spirit;  of  almost  unparalleled  self-seeking  and  political 
dishonesty;  and  of  a  flattering  servility  to  which,  in  the 
same  way,  hardly  any  parallel  can  be  found.  Its  chief 
redeeming  features  were,  that  it  was  not  a  cowardly  age, 
and,  for  the  most  part,  not  a  hypocritical  one.  Men  seem 
frequently  to  have  had  few  convictions,  and  sometimes  to 
have  changed  them  with  a  somewhat  startling  rapidity; 
but  when  they  had  them,  they  had  also  the  courage  of 
them.  They  hit  out  with  a  vigour  and  a  will  which  to 
this  day  is  refreshing  to  read  of ;  and  when,  as  sometimes 
happened,  they  lost  the  battle,  they  took  their  punishment, 
N    9  ''^ 


186  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

as  with  perhaps  some  arrogance  we  are  wont  to  say,  like 
Englishmen.  Dryden  had  the  merits  and  the  defects 
eminently ;  but  the  defects  were,  after  all,  in  a  mild  and 
by  no  means  virulent  form.  His  character  has  had  ex- 
ceedingly hard  measure  since.  During  the  last  ten  years 
of  his  life,  and  for  the  most  part  of  the  half-century  suc- 
ceeding his  death,  his  political  principles  were  out  of 
favour,  and  this  naturally  prejudiced  many  persons  against 
his  conduct  even  at  the  time  when  his  hterary  eminence 
was  least  questioned.  In  Johnson  and  in  Scott,  Dryden 
found  a  brace  of  the  doughtiest  champions,  as  heartily 
prepossessed  in  his  favour  as  they  were  admirably  armed 
to  fight  his  battles.  But  of  late  years  he  has  again  fallen 
among  the  Philistines.  It  was  obviously  Lord  Macaulay's 
game  to  blacken  the  greatest  literary  champion  of  the 
cause  he  had  set  himself  to  attack;  and  I  need  not  say 
with  what  zest  and  energy  Macaulay  was  wont  to  wield 
the  tar-brush.  Some  years  later  Dryden  had  the  good 
fortune  to  meet  with  an  admirable  editor  of  his  poems. 
I  venture  to  think  the  late  Mr.  Christie's  Globe  edition 
of  our  poet  one  of  the  very  best  things  of  the  kind  that 
has  ever  been  produced.  From  the  purely  literary  point 
of  view  there  is  scarcely  a  fault  to  be  found  with  it.  But 
the  editor  unfortunately  seems  to  have  sworn  allegiance 
to  Shaftesbury  before  he  swore  allegiance  to  Dryden. 
He  reconciled  these  jarring  fealties  by  sacrificing  the  char- 
acter of  the  latter,  while  admitting  his  intellectual  great- 
ness. An  article  to  which  I  have  more  than  once  referred 
in  the  Quarterly  Review  puts  the  facts  once  more  in  a 
clear  and  fair  light.  But  Mr.  Green's  twice-published  his- 
tory has  followed  in  the  old  direction,  and  has  indeed  out- 
Macaulayed  Macaulay  in  reckless  abuse.  I  believe  that  I 
have  put  the  facts  at  least  so  that  any  reader  who  takes 


IX.]  CONCLUSION.  187 

the  trouble  may  judge  for  himself  of  the  private  conduct 
of  Dryden.  His  behaviour  as  a  public  man  has  also  been 
dealt  with  pretty  fully ;  and  I  think  we  may  safely  con- 
clude that  in  neither  case  can  the  verdict  be  a  really  unfa- 
vourable one.  Dryden,  no  doubt,  was  not  austerely  virtu- 
ous. He  was  not  one  of  the  men  who  lay  down  a  compre- 
hensive scheme  of  moral,  political,  and  intellectual  conduct, 
and  follow  out  that  scheme,  come  wind,  come  weather.  It 
is  probable  that  he  was  quite  aware  of  the  existence  and 
alive  to  the  merits  of  cakes  and  ale.  He  was  not  an 
economical  man,  and  he  had  no  scruple  in  filling  up  gaps 
in  his  income  with  pensions  and  presents.  But  all  these 
things  were  the  way  of  his  world,  and  he  was  not  exces- 
sive in  following  it.  On  the  other  hand,  all  trustworthy 
testimony  concurs  in  praising  his  amiable  and  kindly  dis- 
position, his  freedom  from  literary  arrogance,  and  his  will- 
ingness to  encourage  and  assist  youthful  aspirants  in  liter- 
ature. Mercilessly  hard  as  he  hit  his  antagonists,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  he  was  rarely  the  first  to  strike.  On 
the  whole,  putting  aside  his  licence  of  language,  which  is 
absolutely  inexcusable,  but  for  which  it  must  be  remem- 
bered he  not  only  made  an  ample  apology,  but  such- amends 
as  were  possible  by  earnestly  dissuading  others  from  fol- 
lowing his  example,  we  shall  be  safe  in  saying  that,  though 
he  was  assuredly  no  saint,  there  were  not  so  very  many 
better  men  then  living  than  John  Dryden. 

A  shorter  summary  will  suffice  for  the  literary  aspect  of 
the  matter ;  for  Dryden's  peculiarities  in  this  respect  have 
already  been  treated  fully  enough.  In  one  of  his  own  last 
letters  he  states  that  his  life-object  had  been  to  improve 
the  language,  and  especially  the  poetry.  He  had  accom- 
plished it.  With  our  different  estimate  of  the  vahie  of 
old  English  literature,  we  cannot,  indeed,  adopt  Johnson's 


188  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

famous  metaphor,  and  say  that  "  he  found  English  of  brick 
and  left  it  of  marble."  The  comparison  of  Hamlet  and 
Macbeth  to  "  brick,"  with  Don  Sebastian  and  the  Spanish 
Friar  for  "  marble,"  would  be  absurd.  But  in  truth  the 
terms  of  the  comparison  are  inappropriate.  English  as 
Dryden  found  it  —  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  he 
found  it  not  the  English  of  Shakspeare  and  Bacon,  not 
even  the  English  of  such  survivals  as  Milton  and  Taylor, 
but  the  English  of  persons  like  Cowley,  Davenant,  and  their 
likes — was  not  wholly  marble  or  wholly  brick.  No  such 
metaphor  can  conveniently  describe  it.  It  was  rather  an 
instrument  or  machine  which  had  in  times  past  turned  out 
splendid  work,  but  work  comparatively  limited  in  kind, 
and  liable  to  constant  flaws  and  imperfections  of  more  or 
less  magnitude.  In  the  hands  of  the  men  who  had  lately 
worked  it,  the  good  work  had  been  far  less  in  quantity  and 
inferior  in  quality ;  the  faults  and  flaws  had  been  great 
and  numerous.  Dryden  so  altered  the  instrument  and  its 
working  that,  at  its  best,  it  produced  a  less  splendid  result 
than  before,  and  became  less  suited  for  some  of  the  high- 
est applications,  but  at  the  same  time  became  available  for 
a  far  greater  variety  of  ordinary  purposes,  was  far  surer 
in  its  working,  without  extraordinary  genius  on  the  part  of 
the  worker,  and  was  almost  secure  against  the  grosser  im- 
perfections. The  forty  years'  work  whieh  is  at  once  the 
record  and  the  example  of  this  accomplishment  is  itself 
full  of  faults  and  blemishes,  but  they  are  always  committed 
in  the  effort  to  improve.  Dryden  is  always  striving,  and 
consciously  striving,  to  find  better  literary  forms,  a  better 
vocabulary,  better  metres,  better  constructions,  better  style. 
He  may  in  no  one  branch  have  attained  the  entire  and 
flawless  perfection  which  distinguishes  Pope  as  far  as  he 
goes ;  but  the  range  of  Dryden  is  to  the  range  of  Pope  as 


IX.]  CONCLUSION.  189 

that  of  a  forest  to  a  shrubbery,  and  fn  this  case  priority 
is  everything,  and  the  priority  is  on  the  side  of  Dryden. 
He  is  not  our  greatest  poet;  far  from  it.  But  there  is 
one  point  in  which  the  superlative  may  safely  be  applied 
to  him.  Considering  what  he  started  with,  what  he  ac- 
complished, and  what  advantages  he  left  to  his  successors, 
he  must  be  pronounced,  without  exception,  the  greatest 
craftsman  in  English  letters,  and  as  such  he  ought  to  be 
regarded  with  peculiar  veneration  by  all  who,  in  however 
humble  a  capacity,  are  connected  with  the  craft. 

This  general  estimate,  as  well  as  much  of  the  detailed 
criticism  on  which  it  is  based,  and  which  will  be  found  in 
the  preceding  chapters,  will  no  doubt  seem  exaggerated  to 
not  a  few  persons,  to  the  judgment  of  some  at  least  of 
whom  I  should  be  sorry  that  it  should  seem  so.  The  truth 
is,  that  while  the  criticism  of  poetry  is  in  such  a  disorderly 
state  as  it  is  at  present  in  regard  to  general  principles,  it 
cannot  be  expected  that  there  should  be  any  agreement 
between  individual  practitioners  of  it  on  individual  points. 
So  long  as  any  one  holds  a  definition  of  poetry  which  re- 
gards it  wholly  or  chiefly  from  the  point  of  view  of  its 
subject-matter,  wide  difiEerences  are  unavoidable.  But  if 
we  hold  what  I  venture  to  think  the  only  Catholic  faith 
with  regard  to  it,  that  it  consists  not  in  a  selection  of  sub- 
jects, but  in  a  method  of  treatment,  then  it  seems  to  me 
that  all  diflSculty  vanishes.  We  get  out  of  the  hopeless 
and  sterile  controversies  as  to  whether  Shelley  was  a  great- 
er poet  than  Dryden,  or  Dryden  a  greater  poet  than  Shel- 
ley. For  my  part,  I  yield  to  no  man  living  in  rational  ad- 
miration for  either,  but  I  decline  altogether  to  assign  marks 
to  each  in  a  competitive  examination.  There  arc,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  many  mansions  in  poetry,  and  the  great  poets 
live  apart  m  them.     What  constitutes  a  great  poet  is  su- 


190  DRYDEN.  [chap. 

premacy  in  his  own  line  of  poetical  expression.  Such 
supremacy  must  of  course  be  shown  in  work  of  sufficient 
bulk  and  variety,  on  the  principle  that  one  swallow  does 
not  make  a  summer.  We  cannot  call  Lovelace  a  great 
poet,  or  Barnabe  Barnes;  perhaps  we  cannot  give  the 
name  to  Collins  or  to  Gray.  We  must  be  satisfied  that 
the  poet  has  his  faculty  of  expression  well  at  command, 
not  merely  that  it  sometimes  visits  him  in  a  casual  man- 
ner ;  and  we  must  know  that  he  can  apply  it  in  a  sufficient 
number  of  different  ways.  But  when  we  see  that  he  can 
under  these  conditions  exhibit  pretty  constantly  the  poet- 
ical differentia,  the  power  of  making  the  common  uncom- 
mon by  the  use  of  articulate  language  in  metrical  arrange- 
ment so  as  to  excite  indefinite  suggestions  of  beauty,  then 
he  must  be  acknowledged  a  master. 

When  we  want  to  see  whether  a  man  is  a  great  poet  or 
not,  let  us  take  him  in  his  commonplaces,  and  see  what  he 
does  with  them.  Here  are  four  lines  which  are  among 
the  last  that  Dryden  wrote ;  they  occur  in  the  address  to 
the  Duchess  of  Ormond,  who  was,  it  must  be  remembered, 
by  birth  Lady  Margaret  Somerset : 

"  0  daughter  of  the  rose,  whose  cheeks  unite 
The  differing  titles  of  the  red  and  white, 
Who  heaven's  alternate  beauty  well  display, 
The  blush  of  morning  and  the  milky  way." 

The  ideas  contained  in  these  lines  are  as  old,  beyond  all 
doubt,  as  the  practice  of  love-making  between  persons  of 
the  Caucasian  type  of  physiognomy,  and  the  images  in 
which  those  ideas  are  expressed  are  in  themselves  as  well 
worn  as  the  stones  of  the  Pyramids.  But  I  maintain  that 
any  poetical  critic  worth  his  salt  could,  without  knowing 
who  wrote  them,  but  merely  from  the  arrangement  of  the 


IX.]  CONCLUSION.  191 

words,  the  rhythm  and  cadence  of  the  line,  and  the  manner 
in  which  the  images  are  presented,  write  "  This  is  a  poet, 
and  probably  a  great  poet,"  across  them,  and  that  he  would 
be  right  in  doing  so.  When  such  a  critic,  in  reading  the 
works  of  the  author  of  these  lines,  finds  that  the  same  touch 
is,  if  not  invariably,  almost  always  present;  that  in  the 
handling  of  the  most  unpromising  themes,  the  mots  ray<m- 
nants,  the  mots  de  lumiere  are  never  lacking ;  that  the  sug- 
gested images  of  beauty  never  fail  for  long  together ;  then 
he  is  justified  in  striking  out  the  "  probably,"  and  writing 
*'  This  is  a  great  poet."  If  he  tries  to  go  farther,  and  to 
range  his  great  poets  in  order  of  merit,  he  will  almost  cer- 
tainly fail.  He  cannot  count  up  the  beauties  in  one,  and 
then  the  beauties  in  the  other,  and  strike  the  balance  ac- 
cordingly. He  can  only  say,  "  There  is  the  faculty  of  pro- 
ducing those  beauties ;  it  is  exercised  under  such  condi- 
tions, and  with  such  results,  that  there  is  no  doubt  of  its 
being  a  native  and  resident  faculty,  not  a  mere  casual  in- 
spiration of  the  moment ;  and  this  being  so,  I  pronounce 
the  man  a  poet,  and  a  great  one."  This  can  be  said  of 
Dryden,  as  it  can  be  said  of  Shelley,  or  Spenser,  or  Keats, 
to  name  only  the  great  English  poets  who  are  most  dis- 
similar to  him  in  subject  and  in  style.  All  beyond  this 
is  treacherous  speculation.  The  critic  quits  the  assistance 
of  a  plain  and  catholic  theory  of  poetry,  and  developes 
all  sorts  of  private  judgments,  and  not  improbably  private 
crotchets.  The  ideas  which  this  poet  works  on  are  more 
congenial  to  his  ideas  than  the  ideas  which  that  poet  works 
on ;  the  dialect  of  one  is  softer  to  his  ear  than  the  dialect 
of  another ;  very  frequently  some  characteristic  which  has 
not  the  remotest  connexion  with  his  poetical  merits  or 
demerits  makes  the  scale  turn.  Of  only  one  poet  can  it 
be  safely  said  that  he  is  greater  than  the  other  great  poets, 


192  DRYDEN.  [chap.  ix. 

for  the  reason  that  in  Dryden's  own  words  he  is  larger 
and  more  comprehensive  than  any  of  them.  But  with  the 
exception  of  Shakspeare,  the  greatest  poets  in  different 
styles  are,  in  the  eyes  of  a  sound  poetical  criticism,  very 
much  on  an  equality.  Dryden's  peculiar  gift,  in  which  no 
poet  of  any  language  has  surpassed  him,  is  the  faculty  of 
treating  any  subject  which  he  does  treat  poetically.  His 
range  is  enormous,  and  wherever  it  is  deficient,  it  is  possi- 
ble to  see  that  external  circumstances  had  to  do  with  the 
apparent  limitation.  That  the  author  of  the  tremendous 
satire  of  the  political  pieces  should  be  the  author  of  the 
exquisite  lyrics  scattered  about  the  plays ;  that  the  special 
pleader  of  Religio  Laid  should  be  the  tale-teller  of  Pala- 
mon  and  Arcite,  are  things  which,  the  more  carefully  I 
study  other  poets  and  their  comparatively  limited  perfec- 
tion, astonish  me  the  more.  My  natural  man  may  like 
Kuhla  Khan,  or  the  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  or  the  Ode 
on  Intimations  of  Immortality,  or  0  World!  0  Life!  0 
Tim^  !  with  an  intenser  liking  than  that  which  it  feels  for 
anything  of  Dryden's.  But  that  arises  from  the  pure  ac- 
cident that  I  was  bom  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  Dryden  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth. 
The  whirligig  of  time  has  altered  and  is  altering  this  re- 
lation between  poet  and  reader  in  every  generation.  But 
what  it  cannot  alter  is  the  fact  that  the  poetical  virtue 
which  is  present  in  Dryden  is  the  same  poetical  virtue 
that  is  present  in  Lucretius  and  in  ^schylus,  in  Shelley 
and  in  Spenser,  in  Heine  and  in  Hugo. 


THE    END. 


By  Sir  WALTER  BE8ANT 


IN  DEACON'S  ORDERS,  and  Other  Stories.    12mo,  Cloth.  Or- 
namental, $1  25. 

BEYOND  THE  DREAMS  OP  AVARICE,    Illustrated.    12mo. 
Cloth,  $1  50. 

ARMOREL  OF  LYONESSE.    Illustrated.     12mo,  Cloth,  f  1  25  ; 
8vo,  Paper,  50  cents. 

ALL  SORTS  AND  CONDITIONS  OF  MEN.  Illustrated.  12mo, 

Cloth,  $1  25  ;  8vo,  Paper,  50  cents. 
GASPARD  DE  COLIGNY.    16mo,  Cloth,  30  cents. 
CHILDREN  OF  GIBEON.     12mo,  Cloth,  |1  25 ;  8vo,  Paper.  50 

cents. 

FIFTY  YEARS  AGO.     Illustrated.    Svo,  Cloth,  $2  50. 

HERR  PAULUS.    Svo,  Paper,  35  cents. 

FOR  FAITH   AND   FREEDOM,      Illustrated.      12mo,  Cloth, 
$1  25  ;  Svo,  Paper,  50  cents. 

LONDON.    Illustrated.     Svo,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  $3  00. 

ST.  KATHARINE'S  BY  THE  TOWER.     Illustrated.     12mo. 

Cloth,  $1  25  ;  Svo,  Paper.  50  cents. 
THE  BELL  OF  ST.  PAUL'S.     Svo,  Paper.  35  cents. 
THE  IVORY  GATE.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  25. 
THE  REBEL  QUEEN.     Illustrated.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50. 
THE   WORLD   WENT   VERY   WELL   THEN.      Illustrated. 

12ino,  Cloth,  $1  25. 

THE  INNER  HOUSE.     Svo,  Paper,  30  cents. 

VERBENA  CAMELLIA  STEPHANOTIS.  Svo,  Paper,  50  cents. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  Publmhkbs 

NEW  TOBK  AND  LONDON 

Jt^~.4ny  of  the  above  works  will  be  nent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to 
any  part  cf  the  United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  t'le 
price. 


By  WILLIAM  BLACK 


Library  Edition. 


A  DAUGHTER  OP  HETH. 

A  PRINCESS  OP  THULE. 

!)ONALD  ROSS  OF  HEIMRA. 

GREEN  PASTURES  AND 
PICCADILLY. 

IN  PAR  LOCHABER. 

IN  SILK  ATTIRE. 

JUDITH  SHAKESPEARE.  Il- 
lustrated by  Abbey. 

KILMENY. 

MACLEOD  OP  DARE.    lU'd. 

MADCAP  VIOLET. 

PRINCE  PORTUNATUS.  Il- 
lustrated. 

SABINA  ZEMBRA. 

SHANDON  BELLS.    Ill'd. 


STAND  PAST,  CRAIG-ROY 
STON!    Illustrated. 

SUNRISE. 

THAT  BE AUTI PUL 
WRETCH.    Illustrated. 

THE  MAGIC  INK,  AND 
OTHER  STORIES.     Ill'd. 

THE  STRANGE  ADVEN- 
TURES OP  A  HOUSE- 
BOAT.    Illustrated. 

THE  STRANGE  ADVEN- 
TURES OP  A  PHAETON. 

THREE  PEATHERS. 

WHITE  HEATHER. 

WHITE  WINGS.    Illustrated. 

YOLANDE.     Illustrated. 


12mo,  Cloth,  $1  35  per  volume. 

WOLFENBERG.  — THE  HANDSOME  HUMES.     Illustrated. 
12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50  each. 

WILD  EELIN.—BRISEIS.— HIGHLAND   COUSINS.     Illus- 
trated.    12nio,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  $1  75  each. 

Complete  Sets,  28  Volumes,  Cloth,  $33  50 ;  Half  Calf,  $63  00. 
Popular  Edition,  including  nearly  all  tlie  aJxyoe  volumes,  IQmo, 
Cloth,  80  cents  per  volume. 

Mr.  Black  knows  so  well  just  what  to  describe,  and  to  what  length, 
that  the  scenery  of  his  novels — by  comparison  with  that  of  many  we  are 
obliged  to  read — seems  to  have  been  freshened  by  soft  spring  rains.  His 
painting  of  character,  his  conversations  and  situations,  are  never  strongly 
dramatic,  but  they  are  thoroughly  good.  He  never  gives  us  a  tame  or 
tiresome  chapter,  and  this  is  something  for  which  readers  will  be  pro- 
foundly grateful. — N".  Y.  Tribune. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  Publishers 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

iny  of  the  above  works  will  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to  any 
part  of  the  United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


By  R.  D.  BLACKMORE 


PERLYCROSS.     A   Novel.      Post    8vo,  Cloth,  Orna- 
mental, $1  75. 
Told  with  delicate  and  delightful  art.    Its  pictures  of  rural 

English  scenes  and  characters  will  woo  and  solace  tlie  reader.  .  .  . 

Not  often  do  we  find  a  more  impressive  piece  of  work. — N.  Y.  Sun. 

SPRINGHAVEN.     Illustrated.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50. 
LORNA    DOONE.      Illustrated.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  00  ; 

8vo,  Paper,  40  cents. 
TOMMY  UPMORE.     The  Remarkable  History  of  Sir 

Thomas  Upmore,  Bart.,  M.P.      16mo,  Half  Cloth,  50 

cents  ;  Paper,  35  cents. 

His  descriptions  are  wonderfully  vivid  and  natural.  His  pages 
are  brightened  everywhere  with  great  humor ;  the  quaint,  dry 
turns  of  thought  remind  you  occasionally  of  Fielding. — iMiidon 
Times. 

KIT  AND  KITTY.     8vo,  Paper,  35  cents. 

CHADOCK  NOWELL.     Svo,  Paper,  60  cents. 

EREMA  ;  or.  My  Father's  Sin.     Svo,  Paper,  50  cents. 

MARY  ANERLEY.     16mo,  Cloth,  $1  00. 

His  tales,  all  of  them,  are  pre-eminently  meritorious.  They  are 
remarkable  for  their  careful  elaboration,  the  conscientious  finish  of 
their  workmanship,  their  affluence  of  striking  dramatic  and  narra- 
tive incident,  their  close  observation  and  general  interpretation  of 
nature,  their  profusion  of  picturesque  description,  and  their  quiet 
and  sustained  humor. — Christian  Intelligencer,  N.  Y. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS.  Publishbrs 

NEW  YORK   AND   LONDON 

fS'Any  of  tlie  above  voorka  will  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to 
any  part  of  tJu  United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  the 
price. 


W.  M.  THACKERAY'S    COMPLETE 
WORKS 

BIOGRAPHICAL   EDITION 


This  New  and  Revised  Edition  Comprises  Additional 
Material  and  Hitherto  Unpublished  Letters,  Sketches, 
and  Drawings,  Derived  from  the  Author's  Original 
Manuscripts  and  Note-books, 
Edited  by  Mrs.  Ani^e  Thackeray  Ritchie. 

1.  VANITY  FAIR.  7.  ESMOND,  Etc. 

2.  PENDENNIS.  8.  THE  NEWCOMES. 

3.  YELLOWPLUSH      9.  CHRISTMAS  BOOKS, 

PAPERS,  Etc.  Etc. 

4.  BARRY  LYNDON,  Etc.  10.  THE  VIRGINIANS. 

5.  SKETCH  BOOKS,  Etc.    11.  PHILIP,  Etc. 

6.  CONTRIBUTIONS  TO   12.  DENIS  DUVAL,  Etc. 

"  PUNCH."  13.  MISCELLANIES,  Etc. 

Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  Uncut  Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $1  75 
per  Volume. 


The  edition  is  one  which  appeals  peculiarly  to  all  Thackeray 
lovers. — Philadelphia  Ledger. 

Although  we  are  not  to  have  an  authorized  life  of  Thackeray, 
we  are  to  have  the  next  best  thing,  in  the  notes  that  his  daughter, 
Mrs.  Richmond  Ritchie,  has  supplied  to  the  biographical  edition  of 
her  father's  work. — Chicago  Tribune. 

The  biographical  introductions,  which  promise  no  little  per- 
ionalia  fresh  to  most  readers  or  not  before  collected,  will  together 
invest  this  edition  with  unique  interest  and  give  it  a  value  which 
will  easily  place  it  at  the  head  of  editions  of  the  great  English 
novelist. — Literary  World,  Boston. 


HARPER  &   BROTHERS,  Publishers 

NEW   YORK    AND    LONDON 

Any  of  the  abom  works  will  be  »ent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid, 

to  any  part  of  the  United  States,  Canada,  or  Meonco,  on  receipt  of 
the  price. 


IX  SOUTHERN  R£G)OHAi  uBMSfi  f  AOiiTV 


A     000  759  517     6 


